


Here Be Dragons

by notobvioustome



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Dragons, Fantasy, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 49,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7726468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notobvioustome/pseuds/notobvioustome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Separated since childhood, Sherlock and John are reunited when John returns to the island of Berk after a long voyage. Sherlock has always been isolated from the rest of his tribe, and John is changed from years spent fighting pirates aboard The Night Fury. Finding comfort in one another's presence, both dream of something more than what their small Viking village can offer - and both dream of something more than friendship. Mycroft's mysterious plans threaten to break them apart, but if Sherlock and John can work together a certain dragon could bring them back together... just the three of them against the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I'm new to AO3 and fanfiction in general, so please let me know what I can do to improve! Thanks and hope you enjoy!

_The deafening boom of cannons firing; the sharp smattering of gunfire; the screams of dying men filled his ears. Smoke and spray and flame and seawater crashed around him. Wood smashed against wood; splinters flew. It was everything he could do to keep his balance; the deck swayed unpredictably under his seaworthy feet – even the captain staggered as he lunged to slice the new fleet of hooks that gripped the rails. John grasped at the ropes that swung around him, feeling the searing burn of the coarse material sliding through his fist. Sparks rained down on his dusty blond hair. Acrid smoke stung in his nostrils. Through it all, he held his gun with an iron grip. He was young, but there were children younger than him behind the door he guarded, and it was his duty to defend them. So far his experienced comrades had kept the enemy boarders from getting too close, though a few stray bullets had whizzed by, leaving him holding his breath, heart stammering. Suddenly, a man dropped down onto the deck – John hadn’t seen where he’d come from – and fixed his eyes on him, full of bloodlust. In tandem they pointed their guns, and the resounding shot blended as one, and a blinding pain lanced through his body as the world went fiery white…_

John woke with a start. He was drenched in cold sweat and his heart was pounding as though he were in the midst of battle. He had an uncomfortable sense that he’d been crying out in his sleep – his mouth hung open; his tongue was dry, his lips were chapped, and his throat was sore. Slipping out of his hammock, he stepped over to the water pitcher, reassured by the gentle swaying of the floor beneath his feet. Through the porthole he saw the sea stretching calm and black underneath a brilliantly deep indigo sky, each star a miniscule diamond glittering down at him meditatively. He drank and drank, trying to wash away the memory of his nightmare, trying to flush away the memory of the real battle.

They taught him how to handle a gun, how to throw a knife, how to wield a sword; they told him stories of pirate attacks, historic battles on the Mainland, duels and feuds between renowned knights. But the violence had never felt real until the moment the first cannon had slammed into the hull of _The Night Fury_. The horror had never felt real until he watched a man shot dead in the chest and heard his daughter scream. The fear had never felt real until the pirate had trained his dead, evil eyes on his own. And the pain had been unbearable, unimaginable.

Thank the gods it was over now. Captain Lestrade had held the crew together and managed to fend off the first, second, and third waves of pirates that surged onto their ship; by then the pirate ship, Scarlet Kiss, was fleeing over the waves. Five crew members were lost; at least twice that number of pirates had perished.

What bothered John most of all was that the pirates were human. Sailing to Berk, the seamen often talked about the fierce and deadly habits of the dragons that pillaged their sheep. As far as John was concerned, that was simply the way of nature. But how could it be that other humans could give in to such base desires, trading human life for battle glory and gold?

He stared out of the porthole without really seeing, licking his cracked lips and wishing he hadn’t used up his supply of the soothing beeswax balm of the Verland Isles, bought on their last stop on their long journey home. Home. The word danced clumsily around his mind, knocking against other words – adventure, loyalty, companionship – that had come to hold more weight over the last nine years of sailing on _The Night Fury_. Home. He remembered his seven-year-old self watching the docks of Berk recede into the blue ocean haze, pretending he could see his parents waving a fond and tearful goodbye, until his sister Harry had dragged him away, her gray eyes fierce and resolved. “Don’t think about them,” she’d told him firmly. “You’ve got me looking after you now.” And John had believed her. Now he was returning to Berk alone. He didn’t know how he would face his parents. Would they come down to the docks this time, eyes eagerly scanning the crew for a glimpse of their children? Would they have tried to imagine how nine years of seafaring had changed Harry’s young, soft face into the hard visage of a warrior? And what would they expect of him? He could hardly remember his old self, the child John who snuck into the forest to practice swordfighting with the trees, who built a fortress in a hollow redwood and filled it with acorns and blackberries, who climbed onto the roof of the dragon training arena to watch the older children practicing fighting techniques; the John who had a best friend…

His memories felt more like a dream than any reality he’d ever been a part of. The salty tang of the ocean spray, the cry of gulls, the swaying of the wooden deck beneath his feet, the feel of rope under his calloused fingers were much more real, and more familiar; and yet _The Night Fury_ had never become home, either. Harry had been his home, and then she’d left him, slipping off the night before they departed Crescent Bay on the Mainland. That night too he remembered like a dream – the warm southern breeze tickling the fernlike fronds of the palm trees, the stars burning bright in the velvet indigo sky, the wild people of the port town dancing and laughing into the night. The place had a charming lull to it; every night the people were up until the wee hours of the morning, drinking and talking and searching for love and happiness; it was a kind of paradise, closed off from the hardships and horrors of the rest of the world, and Harry had fallen in love with it from the moment her feet touched the sand. And then she’d fallen in love with Clara, much to the shock and dismay of _The Night Fury_ crew. But Crescent Bay wasn’t like Berk, or the Verland Isles, or anywhere else they’d visited on their long voyage. The people there embraced love in all its forms, and John remembered seeing Harry truly happy for the first time in his life, surrounded by a kind of acceptance that she’d never found on Berk. And he was glad she’d stayed, but he missed her terribly; ever since that day he’d felt just a little untethered, lost. And if he looked deep inside himself – which he tried to do as rarely as possible – he suspected that there was a part of him that had longed to stay as well, to step out from under the burdens he bore, to turn away from the long dreaded moment of setting foot on Berk again, the moment of discovery when he saw how those long nine years had changed, or more likely not changed, his parents.

The shifting and creaking of the wood around him brought him back into the present. The horror of his nightmare had faded, and now he simply felt exhausted, a stealthy anxiety gnawing at his chest. Lestrade expected to make landfall on Berk in two days. After nine years of limited communication, all they knew was that the dragon attacks had worsened, and the families who had remained were desperate for their help. No one was looking forward to sharing the news that after searching for so long and losing two ships and many lives, they hadn’t found the legendary dragonslayer, the ultimate object of their quest. At least _The Night Fury_ was loaded with valuable goods like rare medicines and sacks of grains and scraps of iron ore to help prepare for new battles and the long winter that was creeping around the corner.

John pressed his thumbs to his temples and sighed wearily, climbing back into his hammock with a resigned yawn. Leaving Berk, he had felt so excited about adventure, so anxious about leaving his parents; now he almost dreaded returning. Almost. He held on to one hope, the hope that there was at least one person who cared enough about him, one person who would be standing there, waiting to see his face. Someone who he’d missed fiercely without the added weight of guilt and anger that he felt when he thought about his parents. Someone who just might have missed him back. The ship swayed his hammock gently, and he finally drifted back to sleep, slipping into uneasy dreams about dragons and burning ships.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: implied parent death

He’d only looked away for a moment, but that was all it took. The cry of the rare lightning kite had drawn his eye high above the redwoods to track the sleek white bird as she sliced across the sharp blue late summer sky, in pursuit of prey or perhaps merely enjoying the last days of warmth before autumn. A fierce stab of longing lanced through him as he imagined what it would be like to fly, to soar above it all, to leave the earth and its slow, bickering creatures behind. It was in that moment that the softest breeze snuffed out the last breath of his dragonfire. The enigmatic white-gold flames vanished, leaving a pile of charred twigs and a trail of silver smoke in their wake. Groaning in frustration, Sherlock rose from where he’d been kneeling all morning and kicked sodden mud over the dead fire, wincing as his stiff legs protested at the sudden movement. He’d learned nothing from his new experiment, though he was still certain that dragonfire had different properties from normal fire. If only he could keep it alive long enough to test more materials! He’d burned different herbs, different barks, different kinds of dust and even stones, but so far normal fire had yielded the same results. It didn’t make any sense; dragons were living creatures just like humans and other animals – so how could their insides handle the fire they breathed? Did they have some kind of armor in their chest? Where was the fire generated, in the throat or belly? There were so many questions he had yet to answer.

This was only the third time he’d managed to capture dragonfire. They had come in the night, plundering sheep and setting fire to Philip’s house (again). Mycroft had ordered him to stay inside, rushing off to join the fray, but as soon as he’d left Sherlock had slipped out the back window, sidling along walls and leaping from shadow to shadow so as to stay unnoticed by humans and dragons alike. When the flash of brilliant red and gold light had illuminated Philip’s house, he’d managed to dash forward while everyone else was scrambling away (the simmering Armorwing’s attention was focused on the armed warriors), thrusting a torch into the newly ignited fire before retreating into the village and winding back to their house. He’d waited until Mycroft had checked on him before disappearing into the forest; in spite of their constant petty squabbling, he didn’t want his older brother to think he’d been carried off by a Nightmare. With their parents gone, it was Mycroft’s duty to fill in as Chief; Sherlock thanked the gods he was the younger son, devoid of any such responsibility. In any case, Mycroft would be busy long into the afternoon assessing damages and overseeing repairs; he wouldn’t have time to worry about his little brother until dinner at the earliest.

But now that his dragonfire had burnt out, he realized how hungry he was; he probably wouldn’t make it until dinner without some sort of sustenance. He’d snagged a few late blackberries and green apples on his way into the forest, but not nearly enough to fill his growing stomach. Gathering up his notebook, walnut ink, and kite-feather quill, he slipped his bag over his shoulder and set off through the forest, following his favorite deer path down through the winding hills, his feet padding lightly on redwood needles and occasionally crackling on their small dry cones. He scratched notes in his roughly drawn map as he passed familiar landmarks – the lightning struck tree, the split rock, the fern cliff, the mossy hollow, the sandy stream bank, the hidden waterfall. His favorite place to go was the hollow redwood next to the deep pool at the base of the falls; the interior had been filled with decomposing acorns when he discovered it – a squirrel’s stash? But he’d cleared it out and filled it with soft mosses, a perfect hideaway for unexpected summer rainstorms or days when Mycroft threatened to throw him into the sea if he didn’t behave. He couldn’t stop there today, though, so he went on, continuing downhill until he could see glimmering blue slivers of the ocean through the trees.

Gradually, the trees thinned out and he emerged onto the rocky, grass-swept hills that defined the east side of Berk. He could see wisps of gray smoke puffing over the horizon; that meant the raging fires of the night before had all been tamed, and the village was returning to its normal habits, starting up the cooking fires and keeping the forge fires alive and ready. He remembered one afternoon when he’d been out exploring and the dragons had attacked; when he’d returned, he’d seen columns of black smoke billowing up from the village, and he’d known instantly what had happened. One of the nice things about dragons was that they were fairly predictable; after the attack last night, it was unlikely they’d be back for fortnight at the very least. Scrambling down into a shallow valley between two hills swathed in gorse and heather, Sherlock paused to drink deeply from a cold spring that bubbled out from a crack between the rocks and pooled in a shallow dip before sinking back into the earth. He could never stand drinking the well water in the village; it tasted too gritty and stale. Drinking spring water, though, felt like drinking life.

As he climbed back out of the valley and prepared to set off, a glint of white on the ocean horizon caught his eye. Could it be the lightning kite again? He squinted; whatever it was didn’t seem to be moving, at least not very fast. Rummaging around in his pack, he found his collapsible spyglass (he’d nicked it from Philip years ago) and used it to scan the sea. What he saw sent a jolt of alarm and intrigue through his body. It was a ship – and not just any ship, but a Viking ship. The quilted white sail had caught a steady breeze, and they were heading straight for Berk. He thought he could make out a serpentine black emblem on the sail – a dragon? Could it be? It seemed impossible after so long. And wouldn’t there be three ships?

He remembered the day the expedition had left as clearly as if it were yesterday, because that was the day his parents left. He’d filed away the memory and only revisited it in the depths of the darkest nights, but now it came surging forward: his mother and father clad in their finest warrior gear, standing tall and steady at the helm, chieftess and chief, side by side, saluting the remaining villagers as the three ships left the docks; tears streaming silently down his face as he felt Mycroft’s hand settle gently on his shoulder; the both of them pretending nothing was different, nothing would change, nothing could happen to prevent their parents from returning one day. In spite of his parents’ promises, there had been no letters. Mycroft penned letter after letter to send to the major Mainland ports, hoping that one would reach their fleet, but they never received a response. Though no one spoke of it, a darkness seemed to settle over the island when the realization sank in that the ships would, in all likelihood, never return.

But this ship was heading straight for the harbor, and the black crest on the sail was growing sharper: a fabled night fury. His heart leapt into his throat – that was the ship he’d watched his parents sail away on. But where were The Deadly Nadder and The Bewilderbeast? Just as quickly as his hopes had soared, they plummeted into his stomach as fast as the water crashing to the rocky beach on the northern shore. If they’d lost two ships, then they’d lost crew as well… Torn between a burning desire to know and an icy fear of knowing, Sherlock scrambled down the hill, ignoring the gorse thorns that tore at his trousers as he returned to the village in record time. He dimly registered the great horn blowing its deep, resonant breath – someone in the village had seen the ship. Past the houses, past the forge, past the village square, the other people around him blurring into meaningless forms, he raced for the cliffs, his feet clattering across the wooden plank switchback paths that led to the harbor. He was dimly aware of voices calling his name, telling him to slow down, to stop, to wait, but he didn’t seem to be in control of his body, which continued hurtling down, down, down, until the sound of the gentle waves lapping against wood and the dormant boats bumping gently against the docks and the cries of curious gulls drowned out the other sounds. He reached the end of the dock and might have dived straight into the gray-blue depths if he hadn’t felt a hand fall gently on his shoulder, jolting him back to reality.

He turned around to see Mycroft standing calmly behind him, his eyes unreadable, his brow furrowed and his mouth set in its characteristic small frown. It seemed as if he had been standing there, perfectly straight and still, for eternity, but Sherlock hadn’t noticed him as he ran past.

“Wait with me, little brother,” he said in his tired voice. Sherlock waited for a quip about how it wouldn’t do for him to be soaked in seawater when the voyagers arrived, but there was only silence. He couldn’t bear to watch his brother’s searching gray eyes, so instead he turned and trained his eyes on the ship that was nearing the docks all too quickly, but not quickly enough. The rest of the village was catching up, their voices blurring together like a hive of bees. They were practically vibrating with mixed hope and anxiety, but Sherlock felt far away from it all, as though he were floating above the whole scene, a lightning kite drifting on a wisp of smoke.

One moment the ship was too far to make out individual faces; the next it was bearing down on them, sliding up next to the dock, and voices from above were shouting down; ropes tossed and secured; the villagers, in spite of their fears, cheered and cried out with wonder as they spotted familiar faces among the crew. And still Mycroft and Sherlock stood alone, searching for the only two people who mattered, and suddenly Sherlock knew, knew that if they were there he would have seen them already, they would never stay hidden from him, they would be there at the helm just as the day they’d left, and all feeling was dragged out of him like a receding tide; and before Mycroft could sense his intent, he was running away from it all, slipping through the crowd, taking advantage of his slender frame as he ducked around waving elbows and shifting bodies.

He couldn’t think, he couldn’t feel, so he did what he had to do to survive, to escape. Instead of ascending the wooden path to the village, he emerged from the back of the crowd, whose attention was fixed on the disembarking crew, and slipped into the water.

After years of diving for interesting artifacts on the ocean floor, Sherlock was an excellent swimmer, perhaps the best on Berk. He cut through the water effortlessly, kicking off his shoes and shedding his tunic as he went, following the edge of the island away from it all, heading for the north side, where no one would think to look for him, at least not for a while, because of the rumors of dragons nesting there. Of course, he was the one responsible for the rumors because of the numerous fires he’d made, topped off with a handful of strategically whispered tales.

The cold water numbed his body, completing his lack of sensation both physical and emotional. He was empty, a void; he was nothing, he was unattached, he would not feel pain or sorrow or loss because such things were sentiment, weakness. He swam without registering the ache in his body, without noticing the sounds of the villagers and voyagers fading away behind him. Before long he washed up on the east beach, a calm, quiet stretch of gray pebbles and coarse sand edged by steep tumbling boulders and scraggly weeds. He dragged himself out of the waves and ran through the wet sand, letting the ebb and flow erase his footprints behind him as he followed the curve of the island, his chest burning and his eyes stinging with salt (just seawater, he told himself blankly). Soon the beach widened and the pebbly shore gave way to softer white sand; to his left the steep hill gave way to a gentle slope blanketed with redwoods. As he neared the northern tip of the island the hill steepened, and scraps of weathered gray bedrock showed through the carpet of red needles. He could hear a new sound above the endless drone of the waves crashing on the sand – a steadier roar, the roar of water cascading down across moss-covered boulders into a sandy pool on the beach. Without knowing why, he broke out of the foamy waves and stepped into the cool intrusion of freshwater, following it to the source and wading into the pool until he was covered up to his waist, and he went still further, until the fury of the falling water was pounding on his head and shoulders, and only then, protected by the deafening din of the waterfall, did the tears flow freely and the screams rip from his throat, unheard even to his own ears.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: alcoholism, implied parental abuse and depression, parent death mention (I'm new to this, please let me know if you feel that these are inadequate)

John might as well have been invisible. He stood still on the docks, watching the reunions unfold around him, tearful laughter and joyous shouts and broken sobs, arms reaching and bodies colliding and hands grasping and lips meeting. Angelo, a gruff old man who looked just the same as seven years ago but white instead of gray, who lived in a tiny hut on the edge of the village, lifted the granddaughter he’d never met, never dreamed might one day exist, into the air, swinging her around in wonderment. A mother embraced her two daughters, who had grown from young apprentices into trained warriors in their time away; a boy barely older than John stared at his brother, who had grown a full beard and found a wife in the time they’d been apart. The moments flitted around him tantalizingly, but it quickly became clear that he wouldn’t find who he was looking for here. He shouldered his pack, which contained his few belongings: a journal with a makeshift seagull feather quill and a bottle of black ink, a colored sketch of Harry and Clara from a street artist in Crescent Bay, a gold-laced compass embedded with peridot that he’d won in an archery tournament on the Mainland, a velvet bag of various coins he’d scrounged off the streets over the years as souvenirs, a sturdy steel knife in a carved wooden sheath, and his spare set of clothes and boots. He’d only kept the compass because he thought his father might want to trade it; after so long away, he’d felt obliged to bring something home, something that might make up for their failure to find the dragonslayer. Sighing, he began moving forward, one foot in front of the other, cutting through the crowd; no one seemed to see him as he passed, heading up the switchback wooden walkway, feeling like a foreigner on the island where he had been born.

There was something unnaturally quiet about the island, what with the entire village down by the ship. Cooking fires smoked lazily from a few of the houses that came into view as John reached the top of the cliffs. Some looked old and familiar; a few were made of freshly chiseled stone, darker wood and brighter thatch, a testament to the time he’d been away. Scorch marks blackened the bare earth of the village square as he passed through, wondering at how small it all felt. It seemed impossible that all of the people of the island could crowd together in this tiny square for important meetings, when the palace of the royal family of the Verland Isles would have obliterated the whole village if a dragon had dropped it down on top. And speaking of dragons… it was strange to see so much evidence of their existence, when his last blurry, dreamlike memories of them dated back nine years. He could see countless places where their fire had seared his surroundings; beneath his feet he saw the indentations of footprints so large he could have curled up inside them. He could see clawmarks on doorframes and poison blue tail darts from a Deadly Nadder embedded in a roof. Bits and pieces of his dragon training floated through his mind as he tried to identify each piece of evidence and recall each species by name. With an uncomfortable jolt, he realized he’d have to go into training again if he wanted to be of any use fighting against the dragons during an attack; while his battle skills had been honed to near perfection on their voyage, dealing with dragons was nothing like dealing with pirates. He wondered if they’d throw him into the training ring with the seven-year-olds, who would no doubt be better at everything than him. His mood worsening, he kicked at a loose flat pebble on the ground, watching it skitter across the lane. It flashed unnaturally in the sun. Peering down at it, he suddenly realized it wasn’t a stone, but a dragon scale. Slate gray, diamond shaped, and about the size of his palm, it had knife-sharp edges and a glassy glint to it that he found oddly appealing and foreboding all at once. Slipping it into his pocket, he strode on, grimly determined to move past the strange emptiness of the day.

Rounding a corner, he stopped short as he took in the sight of his house for the first time in nine years. He took in a sharp breath, eyes widening in dismay as he saw how much had changed. The thatched roof had darkened with crumbling rot and grown several patches of green moss dotted with some sort of curly gray mushrooms; the wooden exterior was similarly stained with a grayish black mold, and the walls seemed to sag a bit as though the whole house were about to collapse in on itself. Where most of the villagers grew vegetables in strips of soil outside their front doors, his house boasted only scraggly weeds that looked as though the tiniest puff of wind would topple them over. The front door was crooked on its hinges; the windows were dark. John was sure it was abandoned, and yet a dark dread crept through him, and he found himself walking towards it, though he didn’t remember telling his feet to move. Soon he was involuntarily turning the tarnished doorknob in his hand and stepping into the musty, lightless space. Everything felt wrong; too still, too quiet, too old and dead. Then he heard a wheezing cough from somewhere in the depths. He swallowed, afraid to call out.

“Hello?” He nearly whispered, his throat dry and his voice cracking. Clearing his throat, he tried again, nearly shaking with nauseous fear. “Hello? Is anyone here?” Stepping farther inside, trying to locate the source of the sound, he called out one more time. “Mom? Dad?” Maybe they’d moved, he told himself. Maybe they’d built a new house farther up the hill. Maybe they’d been on the docks and he’d just missed them –

“Who’s that?” a voice rasped from the shadows. A broken voice, terrifying in its familiarity. It was impossible. The mildew choked his throat and burned his eyes as he swallowed back bile.

“Hello, Father,” John managed, his eyes slowly adjusting to the murky darkness.

“John? Johnny boy?” His father coughed, a thick, disgusting sound that make the back of John’s neck prickle. His mind was reeling. He’d thought things were bad when he left; he’d never imagined they could be so much worse.

“Yeah, it’s me,” John replied, faking cheeriness, though he couldn’t help keeping his voice low; he felt irrationally worried that speaking in normal tones might cause the ceiling to come crashing down. “Not dead after all. In case you were wondering.”

“I reckoned you were a ghost,” rumbled the dark mass in the corner, wood creaking and rough clothes whispering scratchily as his father stood up from the rocking chair where he’d been resting. John felt as though a knife were slipping into his chest when he remembered sitting on his father’s knee on that chair long, long ago, years before the voyage. Unable to bear the sudden claustrophobia, he took a step back.

“Shall I, er, light a candle? Get a fire going?” He stumbled back another step, feeling around for something to grasp onto, looking for flint and steel or matches or whatever might be lying around. His hand came down on the kitchen table, but he quickly snatched it away when he realized it was coated with a think layer of dust.

“Don’t bother,” his father croaked out with a humorless laugh. “You won’t like what you see.” His words were slurred, and John knew with a sinking certainty that he was drunk. Nothing had changed after all; all that had happened was the house catching up to what its inhabitants looked like on the inside. Old, broken, disused.

“Where’s Mother?” John asked, hoping beyond hope that she’d gone to stay with her sister Heather instead of staying with this shell of a man. In a strange way it was almost a relief to know that his father was just as he remembered him, that the seeds of resentment, even hatred, that he harbored in his chest were justified.

There was a long silence. “I like to imagine she’s feasting in Valhalla now,” his father said sadly. “She was meant to be a warrior, you know. Not a wife, not a mother. I took her away from her destiny. I see that now.” But John was hardly listening. Valhalla? Did he really mean to say that she was –

“She died four years ago. Always staring off over the cliffs, waiting for you to come back. Never the same after that. Thought she would topple right over. Got weaker and weaker until there was nothing left. Left me the day you disappeared over that horizon, went to stay with Heather. She’s dead too. Everyone’s dead. I’m nearly dead,” he added with a listless chuckle. “And you. You’re supposed to be dead. Never dreamed you’d come back alive.”

Of all the things John had feared, his mother dying hadn’t been one of them. She’d seemed fragile, subdued by the drunken rages of his father, yes; but there’d been a determined fire in her eyes all the same, a fire that reminded him of eternity, a fire that protected him when she whispered how much she loved him through the closet door when he hid for hours after the screaming matches had subsided. Dead. Impossible. And yet. He should be grieving. He should be overcome. Instead he feels sick with disgust and brimming with anger. What did he do to deserve this?

“Well, you’re here now. That’s something, I guess. Say, you wouldn’t mind topping up my glass, would you?” John stared at his shadowed, faceless figure incredulously, his mouth moving but words dying on his lips. Then, before his thoughts could catch up with his body, he found himself turning and heading for the door; but before he could escape he caught a glimpse of his father’s face out of the corner of his eye as he leaned forward into a crack of dusty light. It was gray and sallow, wrinkled and twisted, a ghostly rendition of the strong-browed, stern-faced man he remembered as his father. He looked like he’d aged ninety years rather than nine, like he’d grabbed the cloth of time and yanked it towards his heart to get past all of the useless, empty years of life, speeding towards death. “Come on, just the one? After all this time away and you’re just going to walk out on me again?” His voice is wheedling, whining, despicable.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” he managed to spit out as he flung open the front door and burst into the unnaturally bright sunlight. He wanted to bite out another stinging retort, but he was so angry he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he slammed the door behind him with all of his force, feeling a surge of satisfaction when he heard the rotting wood collapse in the frame. He pretended he didn’t hear his father shouting, demanding that he come back and asking where Harry was. He strode away without looking back, heading for the woods without any plan for what to do next. His trousers dragged through the tall, rough grass, catching burrs and thorns, but he raged on, unheeding. Clambering over jagged rocks, he enjoyed the distracting challenge and the sharp feeling of stone digging into his palms. But as he heaved himself up a particularly steep sheet of rock, his pocket caught on a crag and his dragon scale slipped out, skittering down to the ground below. He dropped back down to pick it up, and in doing so his eyes caught on the deep blue of the ocean, sending a pang of loss through his chest – homesickness? And then the truth of his mother’s death lanced through him like a fiery arrow, and he sank down to the ground, shaking with silent sobs, gripping the dragon scale until his fingers bled.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They meet again!

It was almost dark before Sherlock registered that he ought to go back to the house, but the idea of being there now – bearing the weight of its oppressive emptiness on top of everything else – sent him deep into the forest, away from the orange glow of the village’s night fires. Mycroft would be busy welcoming back the voyagers, after all. He wouldn’t have time to run after his little brother. At least he hoped. He couldn’t face him right now, couldn’t uphold his fragile guise of uncaring if it were intruded upon by anything evoking emotion. But he was tired, and not fond of the idea of wandering in the dark forest alone at night, easy prey for a hunting dragon. He needed shelter. Struck by an idea, he changed course, circling around to the clearing where he’d tested dragonfire that afternoon. From there it was just a short trek to the hollow redwood tree by the falls. There was just enough light left to descend the slippery, mossy, spray-dampened path without risk of misstepping. He tried to ignore the insistent, acid pain in his stomach from not having eaten all day. His head was throbbing too; no matter how hard he pressed his hand to his forehead, the pain just seemed to build up worse. But a part of him embraced the physical pain, because he knew it would pass. He wasn’t so sure about the wounds inside him, the wounds that felt too deep to heal, the wounds that he’d wrapped up tightly and had now decided to ignore.

The soft silence of the forest around the falls soothed him as he descended. The stream was only a slender ribbon at this time of the year, tumbling languidly over the rocks and splashing into the pool below, creating a gentle melody that faded easily into the background as he listened to the sounds in the surrounding woods. Except that there were no sounds. No hooting owls, no peeping frogs, no foxes rustling slyly in the undergrowth, no whistling whippoorwills. The only sounds came from far away – the echoes of a celebration in the village, the distant crashing of waves on the beach. The forest usually came alive in the purple shadows of the twilight. Something was wrong. All senses on alert, Sherlock edged down the treacherous path, feeling the waterfall’s spray cling to the raised hairs on his arms. 

Suddenly a shape emerged from the redwood tree, and several things happened in rapid succession. Sherlock froze and flung himself to the side to conceal himself behind a bed of luscious ferns, but the earth beneath him crumbled and he crashed to the ground in a heap with a muffled yell. The shape – a human figure – leapt towards him, and he saw the pale glint of a blade in the dusky light, unmistakable even with the gritty soil falling in his eyes. Swiftly leaping to his feet, Sherlock desperately searched for anything that might serve as a weapon, a shield, or an escape, and was about to reach for a handful of sand to toss in his attacker’s eyes when he realized he wasn’t actually being attacked.

Another boy stared back at him with unreadable stormy blue eyes, his knife hanging loosely at his side, his brow furrowed in a mixture of curiosity and concern. Sandy blond hair, a sailor’s tanned skin – but a part of him had known who it was the moment he’d first seen him.

“Hello John,” he greeted him airily, as though he had not just gracelessly tumbled down a cliff and considered throwing dirt in his face. A flood of memories threatened to come crashing down on him – how John was the only boy on the island who would smile at him, laugh when he told him how he’d deduced the darkest and dirtiest secrets of all of the villagers, follow him when he went on his dangerous adventures, help him when he undertook his bizarre experiments. John was the only one who’d ever listened, the only friend he’d ever had. Suddenly he was standing on the docks again, looking past his parents, watching John, and he thought he had erased the memory permanently along with all of the others but it was as though a hidden door had been unlocked and everything was rushing into his mind all at once, and some part of him came to life when he realized that he had a best friend, a best friend who was alive after nine years –

“Sherlock,” John breathed in amazement, his eyes lighting up with a smile so real it almost hurt him to look at it. No one smiled at him like that anymore. He’d forgotten what it felt like. But the smile vanished just as quickly, replaced by a deep sorrow. “Your parents…”

“Don’t,” Sherlock pleaded, hoping he would understand, he had to understand, especially having learned of his own mother’s death and his father’s illness, surely he wouldn’t make him talk, he wasn’t ready, he wanted to run –

John surged forward and wrapped him in a tight embrace, another experience that felt entirely foreign to Sherlock, so he stood still, almost dazed with shock. Was he supposed to do something? Maybe move his hands? Before he could make up his mind but just as he was deciding the gesture of affection wasn’t so alarming or unpleasant after all, John was stepping back, and Sherlock could tell from the look in his eyes that he wouldn’t say anything more.

“I can’t face going back tonight,” was all he said, his eyes dark with empathy.

“Me neither,” Sherlock admitted.

“Stay with me. I know we’re a bit taller now, but there’s enough room in the tree. And you haven’t even got a knife on you, you shouldn’t be out here alone, and – and I don’t really want to be alone either,” he said in a rush. “Not now, not with… everything.”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright,” he agreed, surprised at himself. Just because they’d been so close before didn’t mean they still were now. It was dangerous to expect that, dangerous to get used to the idea of having a friend again. But he couldn’t stop himself from following John into the hollow redwood, which was the size of a small house.

“I see you cleared out my acorn stash,” John commented in a mock disapproving voice. “And you did quite a few of your own renovations. Can’t say it’s what I would have done, but… It’s kind of nice.”

The acorns. Not only had he attempted to delete all of his memories of John, he’d replaced some of them as well – just earlier that day he’d clearly remembered discovering the tree (and its acorn stash) on his own. He felt uneasy, almost frightened, when he began to grasp the manipulative power of his own mind over himself. He wanted to respond with some lighthearted retort, wanted to recapture whatever they had once shared, the teasing jokes, but his head was still pounding and his throat had constricted strangely so instead he slid down the wall and sat against the smoothed wood of the beloved redwood tree, staring out the entrance without really seeing. Darkness was falling quickly, and he could barely make out the outline of John’s dark silhouette across from him, could almost imagine he was nothing but an echo of a memory, but then he spoke again, softly but assuredly real.

“I have so much to tell you,” he murmured as he folded his legs beneath him, settling in the moss across from Sherlock, the space between them an impossible distance and yet an improbable closeness all at once. “About… fighting pirates, about Harry leaving, about the towns and cities and islands we discovered. I wrote it all down. I wanted you to be able to read it when I came… back.”

“You didn’t say home,” Sherlock noted, immediately picking up on his hesitation.

“It doesn’t feel like home,” John replied, sounding rather lost. Another long pause. “Well. This is the closest I’ve gotten so far.” Sherlock didn’t respond; he was too busy cataloguing the pauses between John’s words, storing the conversation in its exactness in a new space in his mind, because now that he was back he didn’t want to forget anything; he had to make up for whatever he might have deleted from their past. But after a moment he felt a sudden need to say something, to reply to the statement that felt like a heavy weight hanging between them, or a question in disguise.

“I’m going to catch a dragon,” he blurted out, though he’d meant to keep his plans absolutely secret. But if his dredged-up memories of John were accurate, he wouldn’t need to worry about being discovered. They’d both kept plenty of secrets for one another before. He hoped things wouldn’t be any different now. If they were still even friends. Were they still friends? The confusion made his head swim.

“If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t believe you,” John laughed. “How are you going to do it?”

“I’ve been building something new, like a crossbow but with a net attached. It’s not finished; I still need to weave the net. I’ve been testing the properties of dragonfire to see what material would be best. Any fiber might ignite too easily, or snap under the strain of containing such a powerful animal. But metal would be too heavy, and I don’t want to injure the dragon, just capture it. I need to study one, John,” and now he was talking fast, a strange feeling building up inside him as he remembered what it felt like to talk to another person instead of himself. “We know practically nothing about them. We don’t know where they come from, we don’t know why they come; but the answers have to be there somewhere if you know what you’re looking for. I’ve been observing the other animals on the island for years now, and there are patterns, patterns of behavior that make sense once you understand their motives, they’re like humans but they don’t follow the same stupid rules we make up for ourselves; and if the other animals are that predictable, then dragons must be too, but I can never get close enough, Mycroft won’t let me – so I have to catch one.” He stopped, breathing hard, surprised at how his own passion sounded when it was painted into his words.

“You’re… insane,” John finally breathed, but there was a strange warmth in his voice. “You’re going to catch a dragon. Right.” Another pause – what did it mean? “Gods, I’ve missed you. Where is this… crossbow-net thing? Will you show me? Tomorrow, I mean? If you’re not…”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, cutting him off the moment he heard a trace of uncertainty in his voice, because he wanted him to know that he was a part of it all now, that he had a place in Berk even if it wasn’t the one he expected to come back to. “It’s not far from here, actually. I had to hide it a ways off the main path in case anyone came out this far hunting.”

“Right,” John said again. Silence fell between them once more, and Sherlock thought it was the good kind of silence, the companionable kind – but the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became that he was wrong, that John was surely waiting for him to respond, so he did.

“Will you read your journal to me?” Again, it wasn’t what he expected to say. “Or, or just tell me what you remember? Sometimes writing isn’t enough for this kind of story.” He wanted to say more, but he thought it was probably weird to go into detail about that kind of thing, about how he needed to watch John’s face while he told a story so that he could read the emotions there instead of digging for them underneath his written words. He would read the journal too, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same as listening to his friend’s voice, which had changed so much in the years they’d been apart.

“Of course,” John answered sleepily.

“Good. Um. Thank you.”

“Mmm.”

“Good night, John,” Sherlock murmured, listening to the shuffling sound of John shifting down into the moss and stretching out on his side to sleep.

“’Night, Sherlock,” his friend mumbled back, and for the first time in nine years Sherlock felt a genuine smile tugging at his lips, though he fought it off as best he could, sliding down against his side of the tree and thinking about how strange the acoustics of the circular space were, how the sound of John’s steady, slow breathing knocked around until it sounded like a breath against his ear. But somehow that made him feel even more awake, so he turned on his back, careful to keep the distance between them, and forced himself to think about the dragon net and the supplies he’d need to steal from Philip’s forge to build it, and before he knew it he had sunk into the world of dreams.


	5. Chapter 5

_The boom of cannonfire vibrated through his body, but he steadied himself with one hand on a swinging rope; his other gripped his gun even tighter as he scanned the deck for signs that the combat might shift his way. Salty seafoam lashed against the side of the ship, clashing upwards and crashing down on the deck, soaking his boots. The thunderous sound nearly drowned out the cries of the crew as they fought the pirates, but their screams of rage and fear were forever seared into his memory. He watched a black-clad man fall to his death and felt nothing but momentarily relief – one foe defeated. Another took his place. No one stood between the two of them, and for a second the world went silent and his vision zeroed in on the invading pirate, who was caught in the awkward moment of adjusting his balance as he landed on the tossing wooden deck. John itched to take the shot, but he didn’t want to waste his bullets, and Captain Lestrade had made it clear that his singular job was to guard the children stowed away below decks. But then the man turned and looked him in the eye, and his smile raged with a thirst for blood, and in an instant they’d locked their guns on each other, and John was drenched in cold, electric fear, but in the heartbeat before they pulled the trigger something rammed into_ The Night Fury _and both of them misfired; John’s bullet sang into the air, ripping a wound through the pirate ship’s black sail, while the other man’s bullet whistled past him –_

_He spun around and saw his mother standing there, smiling sadly, bleeding from her heart, before she faded into smoke and ashes before his eyes; he reached out and nearly fell as the deck shifted below him, the chaotic cacophony around him closing in, and then he noticed the door was open and the children were coming out, Molly and Sally and Archie and all the rest, and they didn’t listen when he screamed at them to go back, he screamed so hard it burned his throat, and the pirate was walking towards them slowly but John couldn’t move his arm, couldn’t raise his hand to shoot –_

_And then an unfamiliar black form swooped down from the stormy sky, sweeping velvety wings over John and the children and bowling the man over with one powerful swipe of its black-taloned foot, and a blue-white fire began to glow in the sky as John heard the creature speak, telling him everything would be alright, he only had to wake up…_

“You’re dreaming, John.” The soft voice carried him into the waking world. He opened his eyes and realized the bright light of his dream was a beam of fresh morning sunlight streaming into the hollow redwood. His left arm was completely numb from being pinned underneath his body at an awkward angle, and he was shivering under a layer of chilled sweat.

“Hello, Sherlock,” he mumbled shakily as reality flooded his senses.

“Hello, John,” his friend replied with an anxious half-smile. “I didn’t know how to wake you. It sounded like quite an awful nightmare.”

“It was,” John replied with a grimace as he sat up, brushing moss off of his sweat-damped clothing. “Gods, I’m a mess. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to, um, see all that. How – how bad was it?”

“Who were you protecting?” Sherlock’s icy gray-blue eyes watched his with a keen expression.

“Sorry, how did you…?”

“You talked in your sleep. Who were you protecting on the ship when the pirates attacked?” Oh. He’d talked rather a lot, then. He sighed, realizing that it would do no good to put off the story.

“The children. They were belowdecks. It was my job to keep the pirates from getting that far. Captain Lestrade and the others were all in the thick of the fight, but me being the youngest warrior, he ordered me to stay back.” John swallowed, remembering what it felt like to witness the battle its midst for the first time instead of hiding behind the wooden door with the rest of the children like he had when he was younger. They’d suffered many attacks over the years, but they’d never lost any children. “You’ll meet them soon – Molly is Captain Lestrade’s daughter, and Sally is an orphan we took in at Brickport. And there’s Archie, do you remember how Yolanda was pregnant when we left? That’s her son. And the others… They… they all looked up to me. I was the youngest of the sailors, but still older than them by nine years or so. And I knew I wasn’t going to let anything happen to them.”

“But then you got shot,” Sherlock said simply. John’s surprise dissolved into a mix of exasperation and amusement when he remembered what it was like to not be able to hide secrets from his best friend, to have his own stories told to him. He knew it should bother him, but he felt a secret bubble of affection growing in his chest that he pretended to ignore.

“Yeah. I got shot.”

“Left shoulder?” Sherlock guessed.

“Yeah. Right again. How…”

“I can see it in the way you hold yourself. It gives you phantom pain in your leg, doesn’t it?”

“How on earth could you possibly know that?” John asked in amazement.

“The way you walked when I first saw you yesterday. You clearly favored one leg, but you seemed to forget about it the moment you were distracted, so it’s at least partially a trick of your mind.”

“And what else can you deduce about me?”

“You don’t know what to do with yourself now that you’re here; you won’t stay with your father, and your sister’s out of the picture because she stayed behind in Crescent Bay, possibly because of a romantic attachment or maybe because she found friendship and acceptance there that she’d never have here in Berk. You’re thinking about trading a valuable object for enough money to leave Berk and journey somewhere else, but you feel guilty about not using the money to help your father and you still haven’t decided what to do. You’ve become excellent at archery, knife-fighting, and handling a gun, the latter being your weapon of choice. You visited every city and country along the Mainland except for the Night City, and you’re currently feeling anxiety over the idea of being put back in dragon training with children who are years younger than you, because in spite of all of your experience in battle, you’re not prepared for fighting dragons.”

John stared at him, openmouthed.

“Well?” Sherlock watched him out of the corner of his sharp gray-blue eyes. “Did I get everything right?”

“That,” John breathed out with a grin, “was bloody brilliant. Yes. Yes, it was all right. How… Have you been reading my journal?” It was the only explanation he could think of, and yet that didn’t explain how Sherlock knew about his current anxieties.

“I went through your bag,” his friend replied with a smug grin. “And your pockets. That’s where I found this.” Sherlock reached for something lying in the moss and picked up the slate gray dragon scale he’d found in the village the day before. John was too impressed with his deduction to be fully affronted by the fact that he’d gone through his pockets while he was asleep. “Dragon scales litter the ground after every attack; small children sometimes fancy them, collecting them like magpies coveting shiny things, and Philip uses some of the larger ones for building his armor, but little ones like this are too small to be of use; so, you must have picked it up because of sentiment. It only made sense that you’d be worried about dragon training after seeing evidence of their presence in your former home. Now, how did I know you’d been to every city along the Mainland except for the Night City? Here you have a pouch of different coins, not enough to buy anything, so clearly kept as souvenirs; you have at least one with the unique stamp of each trading town along the coast except for the blackened iron coins of the Night City – therefore, you never stopped there on your voyage. And what about your choice of weaponry? It’s clear that you’re a successful archer, or you wouldn’t have won the compass, which has an engraving of a bow and arrow on the back. Your left hand is calloused in all the places where you’d hold a knife, which means you’re accustomed to practicing with it often, and in spite of the age of the blade in your hand, you’ve taken decent care of it and it hasn’t worn out unevenly, which means your target practice is fairly accurate. And I know you must be an excellent shot, or else Captain Lestrade wouldn’t have let you hold a gun during a battle in the first place.”

“But how did you know I wanted to trade the compass?” John interjected, quite in awe.

“Obvious. You won it three years ago – the date is etched on the back as well – and you kept it all this time, but you’ve never used it; it’s in perfect condition, so you didn’t keep it for functionality. But the broken chain indicates you didn’t keep it out of sentiment, or you would have gotten it fixed. No, you intended to trade it all along, but you initially hoped to use the money to help your parents. Upon finally arriving here after so many years, you’re questioning your sense of duty to your father and your loyalty to this very island, or you wouldn’t have come all this way to escape from the village on your first night back. With Harry gone, there’s nothing to keep you here; you need an escape plan, and this is your best bet. But because of your strong moral character, you’re feeling guilty about the thought of not helping your father, even though it’s not something you want to do. And I surmised that Harry stayed behind in Crescent Bay, because of all of your belongings you clearly treasure this sketch most of all, and she looks happier than I’ve ever seen her; this is how you want to remember her. She didn’t come back with you, or you’d be with her now; but she’s not dead, because if she were, you would have hidden it in the back of your journal, where you wouldn’t accidentally stumble upon it and reawaken your grief. I recognized the skyline of Crescent Bay and its very particular architecture in the background from one of Mycroft’s books. Now, why did she choose to stay? Maybe she fell in love, maybe was simply happier there, and knew she didn’t want to return to your parents; maybe both. Simple.”

The sunlight streaming through the entrance to the tree threw warm golden light across Sherlock’s face, dancing across his sparkling eyes as he spoke; his elegant hands moved constantly, holding the objects he described with such delicate care and concentration. Now he was silent, watching John out of the corner of his eyes as though anticipating an unwelcome reaction.

“That… was brilliant. Quite extraordinary.”

“You think so?”

“Of course it was.” Sherlock smiled tentatively and turned to look into the morning sunlight with a far-off gaze.

“That’s not what people normally say,” he said softly, and John remembered all the times he’d gotten yelled at when they were kids because he talked about things he wasn’t supposed to know – who was having an affair with who, who was stealing so-and-so’s vegetables. But after years of not knowing what was happening on Berk, hearing the truth – even if it was about himself – was a relief.

“The girl in the drawing with Harry is Clara,” John said finally, looking away as Sherlock turned back to him. A strange anxiety fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird. He wanted to tell him so much, needed him to know, needed him to accept it, couldn’t hide it. “Clara was her lover. Crescent Bay is… nothing like Berk. Or anywhere else, for that matter. They don’t have any of the traditions we have here. There’s a beautiful kind of freedom in it. They celebrate everyone, all of the humans and all of the gods. I saw women with women and men with men, and people who weren’t men or women at all, just people; and they loved so freely. It was liberating for Harry. She felt at home there. I would love to go back, someday. To visit her. But… the rest of the crew was very uncomfortable there. We had to stay for three months because our ships had been damaged in a storm, and Crescent Bay is very isolated, and being so far south they didn’t have all of the materials we needed to fix our northmade Viking ships. So we had to wait until traders came down from the north. We all did our best to find odd jobs around town to keep ourselves fed, though we were able to live aboard _The Night Fury_ , since she was still in good enough condition. I worked for a local healer and even managed to save a little money, but I gave it all to Harry before we left; it was the least I could do. If I’d stayed I would have been able to go to her wedding. But I couldn’t stay, even though I was happy there. I felt like it was my duty to stay with the crew and come back to Berk, you know? To my parents. I still felt like I owed them. Besides, Harry was happy with Clara, and I had no one. It would have been lonely, living in a city surrounded by happy people. I don’t know.”

He glanced anxiously at Sherlock, who was watching him with dark, unreadable eyes. John wondered what he thought about Harry’s choice to stay with Clara. He wasn’t even sure that Sherlock knew that love could exist outside of that between a man and a woman. It wasn’t like his own parents had ever explained it to him – it just wasn’t talked about on Berk. But visiting the different Mainland cities had taught him everything he needed to know – mainly that in places that weren’t Crescent City, that kind of love was feared and hated, a sentiment that seemed to wear off on his fellow voyagers over time. It made no sense to him, though. He didn’t think it should matter, the traditions and the expectations and all of it; after all, no one could choose to fall in love. He didn’t think this kind of thing could be controlled. And he wouldn’t want to control it. Harry had been so happy; she’d even gone sober after meeting Clara, something he’d never expected to see.

“What are you going to tell your father?” Sherlock finally asked, and John could tell from the softness in his voice that he didn’t feel any of the fear or hatred he’d encountered on the Mainland, just understanding and sympathy. John blew out his breath, both relieved that his friend had calmly accepted his story and distressed that he didn’t have an answer to his question.

“I dunno. I wanted… I thought Mother would understand, even if she didn’t like it. I wouldn’t have hid the truth from her. But Father… well, telling him would be the end of the family. But then again, I suppose our family is quite broken already.” He swallowed, suddenly feeling very vulnerable from having made his fears real by putting them into words. “So it’s either the truth, or a half-truth, or a complete lie. I could tell him she found a man, which he wouldn’t question, but that feels disrespectful to Harry, you know? I could tell him she’s dead, but even he doesn’t deserve to believe that. Or I could just tell him she’d fallen in love with Crescent City. It wouldn’t be a lie…”

“Or, you could tell him nothing,” Sherlock offered with a crooked smile, “and let him find out from the rest of the crew. There are no secrets on Berk, remember? Save the ones between you and me.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” John conceded with a small laugh. “Although the last secret between us that I properly remember was the one about you setting fire to the north shore so that everyone would think the dragons lived there and avoid the place, and I doubt that lasted long after I left.”

“On the contrary, we have that entire half of the island to ourselves,” Sherlock told him with a mischievous grin. “There’ve been plenty enough fires since then, and a few helpful rumors spread around by myself. Works like a charm.”

“Intentional fires?” John asked with a quirked brow, eliciting a blush and a frown from Sherlock.

“Mostly,” he responded airily, leaping to his feet. “Well. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a bit of breakfast.” John scrambled to his feet at the thought of warm baked bread and cooked food with fresh vegetables.

“Now that you mention it… Except, I don’t fancy talking to anyone else just yet, you know? I can hardly tolerate you at the moment,” he teased, though he thought Sherlock understood exactly how he felt.

“Oh, don’t worry. We won’t have to. You see, the dragon-catching net isn’t the only thing I’ve been working on,” Sherlock told him brightly as they stepped out of the tree, John slipping his pack over his shoulders. “Catching a dragon won’t be enough; I’ll also need a sufficient diversion to ensure that no one else is watching me at the wrong moment. Mycroft would be furious if he knew what I was up to,” he added in a low conspiratorial voice. “So, I needed something explosive and harmless but distracting to both humans and dragons that I can set off at the key moment. At the same time, it can’t be anything that would be traced back to me. Want to see what I came up with?”

“Oh god yes,” John answered with a grin as they set off into the brightly lit summer forest, side by side after what felt like a lifetime of being apart, yet feeling closer than ever before.


	6. Chapter 6

“Three… two… one…  _ now! _ ” Sherlock hissed as John shot the stink bomb down into the village in a glorious arc; it sailed straight down into the center of the town square. Upon impact, there was a loud pop, and a huge cloud of sulfurous yellow-green smoke billowed into the air, eliciting shouts of confusion from everyone nearby.

“Brilliant,” John whispered, his blue eyes aglow.

“Let’s go,” Sherlock murmured back with a smile of satisfaction, tugging on his friend’s sleeve as they clambered discreetly down the grassy slope towards Martha’s baking shop. Skirting a few boulders and darting up behind a wall, Sherlock peered around the corner, watching as more and more villagers crowded towards the square. “It’s working perfectly. Come on, John!” They stole along the shadows under the eaves, stepping as silently as possible, though the uproar caused by the stink bomb masked their footsteps well enough. The odorous fumes were starting to drift their way, giving everything an eerie green blur and glow. “Hurry!” With a quick backward glance to make sure John was following and no one was around, Sherlock slipped through the back door, entering the relative safety of the cool, dark storage room. He stopped, all senses alert; was Martha nearby? A squeak of a shoe, a swish of an apron, an exasperated sigh – he spun around to tell John to abort the mission, but it was too late; John ran into him at full speed, and for a heartbeat all Sherlock could think about was how surprising it was to finally, finally be  _ taller _ than John, after all these years – and then they were tumbling over a sack of flour, landing on the earthen floor in a tangle of arms and legs, John’s body nearly crushing him.

“Well, you told me to hurry!” John hissed at him with a glare. “Didn’t expect you to stop dead in my way…”

“I didn’t expect you to stop looking where you were going!” Sherlock shot back. “I left you plenty of room to stop behind me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly easy to see in the dark after standing out in the bright morning, you know? Couldn’t you at least have, I dunno, moved to the side or –”

“And what exactly do you boys think you’re doing in my pantry?”

Sherlock, who was effectively trapped under John’s body, felt his face grow hot; he was immensely grateful for the fact that the storage room was rather dark, and equally grateful for the fact that his voice remained steady when he replied.

“Just thought we’d stop by. Didn’t expect the bags of flour to get in the way.”

“Goodness, Sherlock, you ought to know by now that you can just walk in the front door,” Martha chided him affectionately. “And who’s that with you?”

“Hullo, Martha,” John greeted her sheepishly as he scrambled to his feet, dusting flour off of his clothes. “It’s good to see you again.”

“John? Is that you?” Martha gasped in delight. “Oh, this is just wonderful! Won’t you come in and have some pie? I assume that’s what you were here for, after all,” she said with a wink at Sherlock, who blushed even harder as he picked himself up off the floor. “It feels as if it were only yesterday when the two of you were here helping me with the pastries, although you were honestly more harm than help with the mess you made,” she reminisced as she led them into the warmth of the kitchen. Sherlock caught John’s eye, and they both grinned; getting caught wasn’t the end of the world, after all. Martha was the only person on the island Sherlock could tolerate for more than a single line of conversation. But then her smile faded, a shadow darkening her usually bright eyes, and he knew instinctively that she was reflecting on their parents’ deaths. “Your brother’s been worried sick about you, you know,” she continued, pointing sternly at him, hiding her sadness behind a mask of maternal concern. He loved her for that. He felt strangely calm and emotionless, as though his catharsis under the waterfall had siphoned away all of his grief, but he knew it was still lurking beneath the surface. “You’ve got to let him know you’re all right, yeah?”

“If he were really worried he’d have found me by now,” Sherlock muttered, needing to maintain the pretense of his and his brother’s strained, distant relationship.

“Well, he’s got the whole island to worry about, you know? Just talk to him, at least let him see you. I know he’s worried. But if he knew you were all right, at least he could go back to being glad you’re not getting in his way,” she teased as she set down generously sliced portions of blackberry pie on a dusty table against the wall.

“Yes, fine,” Sherlock agreed in his most bored and reluctant tone as he sat down at the table across from John.

“Wonderful. Now John, what are you going to do now that you’re back?” Sherlock glared at her; obviously John wasn’t ready to talk about that yet, he needed space, time to think about it –

“Well, honestly… I dunno. I can’t stay with my father. Nothing could convince me to do that. And I thought about leaving Berk because after seeing the world, I don’t feel tied to the island anymore, you know? But… I’m not ready to leave, either. I think… I have unfinished business here.” Sherlock watched John’s face carefully, but his friend seemed determined not to catch his eye. Why was he talking about it so readily? What did he mean by unfinished business? He tried to trample down the warring hope and anxiety that battled in his chest. He’d only had John back for, well, less than a day, and he was already this attached? Sentiment. Not good. Still, he reasoned, John could be useful to him. It wouldn’t do to lose him so soon, not when his dragon-catching plan was about to enter its most critical phase.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out what’s right,” Martha told him with warm sympathy, squeezing his shoulder before returning to the ovens to check on her loaves. “Chatterjee told me all about Harry staying in Crescent City. It sounds like she figured it out, didn’t she?” She smiled, a knowing spark in her eyes. Interesting.

“He told you…  _ all _ about it?” John questioned, uncertain, holding a forkful of pie suspended halfway to his mouth.

“Oh yes, he told me about Clara,” Martha confirmed, still smiling. “Live and let live, that’s what I always say. Poor girl, she deserved to be happy after all the two of you went through here. You’ll find your happiness too, I’m sure, even if it’s not where you expect it. That’s often how these things work.” Sherlock couldn’t decide if her words were wise or foolish – there was a certain allure to the idea of fate and spontaneity, but he preferred logic and order and taking control; in his experience, anything else led to disaster. “Sherlock, aren’t you going to eat your pie?”

He jumped and looked at his plate, surprised that he’d only taken a few bites. He must have been distracted by the conversation, he told himself, unwilling to admit he’d been watching John’s face the whole time trying to read every slightest change in his expressions. He needed to deflect. Time came to a standstill as he analyzed everything he’d noticed about Martha – the tired shadows under her eyes from a restless night, the freshly laundered apron and her newly sewn dress with her finest dyed cotton, the flowers in the front window.

“So, are you going to see Chatterjee again?” he asked pointedly, breaking out of his mind study and returning to his pie with a surge of satisfaction as she blushed and scowled at him. His deduction had been correct.

“That’s none of your business,” she scolded him. Sherlock wondered if he should tell her about all of the “wives” he’d had on the Verland Isles (contrary to what he’d led John to believe, he  _ had _ read through some of his journal while he slept, where he gleaned plenty of interesting insight into the lives of the other voyagers, not just John). “John, dear, if you need a place to stay, well, I’ve a bit of an empty nest upstairs since all of the young’uns married off.” John looked startled at the offer.

“Martha, I couldn’t – I don’t have – well, how could I pay you back?”

_ Very _ interesting. Why, Sherlock wondered, wouldn’t he immediately offer the compass? It meant he was interested in staying on Berk, at least for a time, but wasn’t willing to give up his escape plan.

“Oh, I don’t need anything from you, dear,” she assured him as she went to pull the bread out of the oven, releasing a flood of the warm, yeasty scent into the kitchen. “It’s lonely in this shop with Rachel and Thomas gone. The sound of footsteps on the stairs, a bit of company at breakfast, an extra hand when the flour gets delivered – nothing you’d be uncomfortable with, whatever you’d expect in a proper home,” she finished with a soft smile in John’s direction. “And you too, Sherlock,” she added; he nearly dropped his fork in surprise. “I’m certain you weren’t planning on living with Mycroft forever. It’d do you good to get out of that house and give him some space. I’ve got two empty rooms, perfect for the both of you.” Sherlock stared at her, barely able to comprehend her offer.

“Martha, that’s… very kind of you,” John finally said, sounding just as surprised as Sherlock felt. “I just might take you up on it. But… well, let us think it over, yeah?”  _ Us _ . Why did he say  _ us _ ?

“Well of course,” she said with an affectionate smile as she carried away their plates. “Now, you’d best be off if you don’t want to get in trouble for the stink bomb – oh yes, I saw the whole thing from the window,” she added with a chuckle at the look of guilt and horror on their faces. “And I won’t say a word. But remember to go see Mycroft,” she reminded Sherlock as they hopped off their stools and made their way to the back door.

“Yes, alright,” he huffed as he made his way to the gloom of the storage room and reached for the door, peering out the crack to see if anyone was around. John nudged his shoulder pointedly and cleared his throat.

“And thank you for the offer,” John added, looking meaningfully at Sherlock. Really? Did he  _ have _ to say it out loud?”

“Yes, thanks,” he muttered as indecipherably as possible, shifting from foot to foot in his impatience to leave.

“You’re welcome, loves. Now off you go.” She shooed them out into the alley with an affectionate smile. Sherlock turned to John, about to ask him – what, exactly? He didn’t really have a plan as to what to do next – but then his eyes focused on a tall figure striding purposefully out of the green gloom behind them, and his flight instincts kicked in. Without a word –  _ sorry, John _ – he bolted towards the field, calculating the quickest escape route (over the lichen-covered boulder, across the spring, down behind the ancient redwood stump, along the ravine, around the rocky outcrop, up the grassy slope, and into the dense pine thickets). He had no doubt Mycroft had seen him –  _ happy, Martha? _ – and no doubt that his brother would stop to talk to John –  _ sorry, again _ – preferring not to risk climbing around and getting his trousers covered in mud and burrs. Once in the thickets, he could circle back to the lone redwood high on the hill and climb it as he often did, masking himself behind the branches, invisible to the village but with a clear view of John down below. All of this flitted through his mind in the space of a single heartbeat, and then he was gone, fleeing the one person in his life he just didn’t know what to say to, leaving behind the one person he could say anything to. He didn’t look back.


	7. Chapter 7

“Hello, John,” Mycroft greeted him smoothly, though his eyes were trained on the spot where Sherlock had disappeared behind a tall, crumbling lichen-splotched boulder. “He does tend to be rather dramatic, does he not?”

“Yeah, well, thank the gods you’re above all that,” John replied, eyeing the village chief’s ax warily. It was a beautiful weapon, taller than himself, shimmering brighter than a dragon’s scales, honed sharper than a griffin’s beak, undoubtedly heavier than it looked; but Mycroft held it with such grace and ease it might as well have been a palm frond. He bit back a laugh at the thought of Mycroft, in the full splendor of his Viking chief’s robes, the very image of the fierce northman, threateningly waving around a palm frond. He’d have to tell Sherlock… whenever he saw him next. What _was_ that, anyway? He wondered. Why did he have to run off like that, alone? They’d been getting on so well. For the whole morning he’d been entirely distracted from the grief and rage that burned low inside him, thanks to his friend’s diverting tales and scheming. But now he felt more alone than ever, and he was in no mood to deal with other people.

“So, John. How are you finding things back on Berk?”

“I’m finding them very well, sir. It’s not that difficult to do when the entire village is only a hundred steps across.” Mycroft stared at him as though concerned that John had seriously misinterpreted his question, but he said nothing about it.

“And how are you… _finding_ my brother?” Okay. What on _earth_ was that supposed to mean? He felt immediately suspicious.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“It could be.”

“No, it really couldn’t.”

“As the village chief, I am obligated to maintain peace and balance among the villagers, which means that Sherlock and his mischief are of very high concern. As his brother, it is my duty to ensure his… well-being. I would be willing to offer you a significant sum of money…”

“Why?” John interjected, still suspicious.

“Because you’re not a wealthy man.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Information. Nothing… indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.”

“Why?”

“I worry about him. Constantly.”

“That’s nice of you.”

Mycroft stared at him pointedly, waiting for an answer. John sighed and closed his eyes, pressing his palms to his forehead. How exactly had he gotten into this situation? What did Mycroft really want? Why was Sherlock avoiding him so desperately?

“Well?”

“No.”

“But I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“Don’t bother.”

“You’re very loyal, very quickly, considering you haven’t seen him in nine years.”

“Well, yeah. He’s my best friend.” Mycroft’s eyes gleamed. _Oh. Dragon dung_. The clever Viking chief had tricked him into answering his first question after all.

“You don’t seem the kind to make friends easily.”

“Are we done?”

“You tell me.”  

“Yeah. We’re done.” But somehow, John found his glare wasn’t genuine. When he looked at Mycroft now, he seemed to see right through his icy, stoic mask to the sad, tired, worried man behind it, a young leader bearing more weight than any one human deserved. His ax looked heavier in his hands now, more like a cane to lean on than a weapon to brandish self-importantly. He turned to leave without a word, and John could see him building up his invisible armor, straightening his shoulders once more and voiding his face of emotion. “Mycroft, wait.” His friend’s brother turned, a flicker of something chasing across his eyes. “I’m sorry about your parents.” Mycroft considered him for a moment, then nodded, his expression betraying nothing.

“Look after him for me, will you?” He asked it so quietly that John almost thought he’d imagined it, but he nodded in response, and Mycroft turned and walked away, seeming newly determined to face whatever was next on his list.

 

 

“There you are!” John exclaimed as he climbed down into the hidden valley. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Why’d you have to run off like that?” He wasn’t angry, exactly; mostly he was just worried about his friend, and a little hurt at being left out. But his feelings were soon forgotten when he parted a curtain of curling ferns as tall as he was (Sherlock’s curly hair was just visible over the top) and entered a small, sandy clearing, where the half-built dragon-catching contraption rested on the ground.

“Hello, John,” Sherlock said airily; John could tell his emotions were fighting between anxiety and pride, though all the while he tried to maintain a dignified air. The effect was dampened by the leaves stuck in his hair; John made a mental note to tell him to remove them later, but at the moment he was too caught up in the beauty of the machine in front of him. It was constructed of finely honed, smoothly sanded redwood beams carved and fitted like a giant crossbow, but rather than releasing a single bolt, it was designed to catapult twelve weights, which would be tied at the edges of the net. Examining it closely, John could see that it would spin the net when it released, which would effectively spread it out to its full width, making it more likely to capture its target.

“Sherlock… this is absolutely incredible!” he exclaimed as he made his way around it; it was about as tall as he was, but it looked light and portable. “This is brilliant. How did you even come up with this?” His friend looked relieved and rather smug upon hearing his praise.

“I knew I’d need something more powerful than a handheld weapon like a bow or slingshot, so I examined the crossbows and catapults on the towers by the harbor when no one was looking; it was easy enough to figure out how they worked. Then I stole all of the tools I needed from Philip’s forge, and I cut the wood from a redwood tree that fell in the western forest. I made a smaller model with a net of twine and practiced with it – I caught an owl, a raven, and even an eagle. I let them go afterwards, of course, though I did study them a bit first. I wrote everything down if you’re ever interested. Anyway, I knew I needed to make this one light enough to be portable, but large enough to support a net strong enough to catch a dragon. I still haven’t worked out the best way to move it around – it’s not heavy, it’s just a bit awkward, and I need to be able to position it quickly. See, it’s built on a swivel base for better aim, but I don’t know how I’m going to get it out of this hollow.”

John wasn’t looking at the contraption anymore. Instead he was watching Sherlock, who was gesturing animatedly at the different mechanisms as he spoke; his eyes were shining, his face open with excitement, his hands moving and his feet dancing from side to side as he addressed the machine from different angles. His enthusiasm was contagious.

“Maybe you could attach wheels?” John suggested, dragging his gaze back to the pivoting base. “Then you could pull it behind you, or push it ahead of you like a cart.”

“Hmm. Yes, yes! That could work.” Sherlock got down on his hands and knees and started crawling around the base, shifting it around so he could examine possible places of attachment. “Here, and here, and here… Hand me that, will you?” he demanded, pointing at a twisted metal rod. John sighed and walked across the clearing to where the tool sat in the sand, picking it up and carefully brushing it off before handing it to his friend. He plopped down on the ground to watch him work, hoping he wouldn’t get too much sand in his trousers.

The sun climbed to a hot noon, then began to slip down towards the horizon again. John sat by Sherlock the entire time, compliantly handing him one tool or another, occasionally dashing off on a longer errand to get more wood or fresh water to drink or a lunch of blackberries and chinquapin nuts. It was the happiest he’d been since Crescent Bay. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t mind at all that Sherlock was ordering him around. In a way it was like having a captain again. Occasionally he wondered why he wasn’t wracked with grief for his mother, but now that the shock had worn off, he realized he’d grieved for her long ago, when he left Berk in the first place. His father was a different matter, but one he chose to ignore, at least for now.

They talked a little, too. A handful of exchanges here and there to fill the silence between Sherlock’s demands. John learned that Sherlock and Philip (“… that insufferable idiot, he lowers the intelligence of the whole island…”) were still mortal enemies; that Angelo had lost his leg to a Nightmare a few years back (“… though that hasn’t stopped him from being the master dragon trainer – if anything, the children are even more terrified of him now, the idiots”), and Sherlock had made him a new one; that Martha’s son Thomas was having an affair with Sarah the seamstress. He felt like a kid again, sitting beside his best friend, listening to him gossip while a gentle wind tossed the leaves above their heads and ruffled through Sherlock’s dark curls; but he noticed something was different about them both. Before leaving Berk, John hadn’t thought much about choices. Leaving with the voyagers hadn’t really been a choice so much as a necessity to escape his parents. He’d always planned on coming back, on picking up his life where he left off, but now he realized that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t just go back to when he was seven; he couldn’t undo the growing up he’d done while they traveled to the Verland Isles and sailed up and down the coast of the Mainland, working and fighting and searching and learning all the way. He was beginning to realize that staying on Berk didn’t make sense for him; that the island wasn’t his home after all, that he needed the feel of the ocean breeze and the sight of blue stretching all around to make him feel right. But at the same time he was realizing just how much he had missed having a best friend. No, not just how much he missed having a best friend – but how much he missed having Sherlock. Sherlock, who was everything he remembered him to be, and more. And he thought that maybe, just maybe, Sherlock didn’t want to stay on Berk either. But he didn’t know how to put it into words, this idea that was beginning to form in his mind. Not now, when John had his father to sort out and Sherlock had his dragons to catch. Not before John could somehow make peace with letting go of the dull future he’d assigned himself to nine long years ago.

The sun had just dipped below the horizon when Sherlock finished the wheels. There were two cleverly carved pieces of wood fitted together with drops of pine sap to ensure they wouldn’t break apart, and they spun on an axis so that they could easily twist and turn independently of each other when skittering over rough terrain. He’d also devised two handlebars to make the contraption easier to push along.

“Well, what do you think?” Sherlock asked, fixing his brilliant stormy gray eyes on John for the first time in hours, impatiently waiting for his opinion.

“Incredible. Absolutely incredible,” John told him as he examined it from all angles. “You know, you’d be the hero of Berk if you put your talent towards making things that other people actually wanted instead of things that cause trouble.” He said it teasingly, but it was true; it amazed him that no one else had noticed Sherlock’s creative potential as an inventor.

“Yes, but that would be boring,” Sherlock said with a you-know-me-better-than-that sigh. “Besides, no one’s ever asked. Now. I think we’re just in time to attend the celebration if you’re in the mood for a little fun.”

“Um, celebration?” John questioned him, confused.

“Well of course. _The Night Fury_ did just return yesterday, after all. What did you think Martha was making all of those pies for?”

“Okay, good point. But… I thought you didn’t go in for that sort of thing?”

“Oh, I don’t,” Sherlock agreed, his eyes gleaming dangerously. “But there’s always opportunities for mischief when the drink starts to flow, and I’m getting hungry, thought we could steal a pie or two, oh, I don’t know, stick poison ivy up Philip’s shirt, set fire to someone’s shoes, the usual. So. You coming?”

“Oh gods yes,” John laughed with a grin, and they took off through the forest towards the village in the gray of twilight.


	8. Chapter 8

“Martha, we will take the rooms upstairs,” Sherlock sang out as he and John slipped in through the back door, this time careful to avoid tripping over the sacks of flour. “Excellent pies at the celebration, by the way,” he added, stepping into the warmly lit kitchen to find Martha scrubbing the counters as she cleaned up for the night.

“Oh, thank you, dear,” she said, beaming at them both. “Now I don’t want to know what trouble you’ve been up to, but I do expect you to sweep up all the ashes you tracked in. I’m your landlady, not your housekeeper.”

“Of course we – er, I’ll get it right now,” John reassured her, as Sherlock was already bolting up the stairs two at a time, leaving his friend to clean up their mess; he could feel John’s exasperated glare burning into the back of his neck. It was after midnight – normally Martha would be asleep, but there was extra cleaning to do after the big celebration. Most of the village was drunk or asleep, but Sherlock was on _fire_. He hadn’t had so much fun since – well, since before John left Berk. He’d essentially deleted fun from his memories. They’d spent hours sneaking around after Philip, darting between bonfires and circles of people talking and singing and dancing, throwing berries and pinecones at him until he was covered with purple splats.

Sherlock picked the room on the left at random and swung open the door, feeling a strange jolt of surprise and affection when he saw that Martha had fixed it up in anticipation, putting new linens on the bed and leaving a few books and a vase of violets on the endtable. He flopped down on the bed and flung open the shutters, leaning out to breathe in the cool, fresh night air that was tinged with bonfire smoke. His heart was pounding, his fingers hot and tingling, he was so _awake_ – he wanted to climb out the window and run just for the sake of it, the thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through his veins – no, he wanted to jump out of the window and _fly_ , he felt so light, impossibly light… He _had_ to catch that dragon. He hadn’t told John the real reason he wanted to study a dragon up close; putting it into words felt like a curse, like a dream dissolving upon waking. But here, breathing in deep, tipping even farther out the window, he could admit to himself that what he wanted more than anything was to be able to fly. Studying dragons in flight was impossible during battle; he needed to see one up close. He practically itched with desperation to learn the mechanics of flight. No sleep for him tonight; as soon as John came upstairs and was settled in the next room, he’d drop from the window and sneak off to Philip’s forge to steal supplies for making the net.

John’s voice startled him out of his reverie. “You didn’t even take your shoes off.” He was standing in the doorway, a broom and dustbin in one hand while the other ran through his hair in frustration. “You left a trail of soot all the way up the stairs and into the room, and you’re going to get it on the quilt if you’re not careful…” Sherlock swung his feet down to the floor, but after that he stopped listening to the admonishment and just stared at John, his heart crashing around in his chest like a fish caught in a net. Why was he feeling like this? He found himself looking at his friend’s face in an entirely new way; John’s story fell away and instead he saw only the colors and planes and angles, the unique blue of his eyes, the way he held his shoulders. Sherlock had the strangest feeling that he’d never really _looked_ at someone before, that this was the first time he’d voluntarily shut down his deductions and seen without observing. And it was fascinating.

“Sherlock, are you even paying attention?” John threw up his arms in exasperation. “If you don’t take off your boots I’m going to have to do it for you, and then I’m going to bed, I’m exhausted.” Sherlock was jolted back to the present by the strange thought of John untying the laces of his boots. The thought was like an electric shock. Interesting. He filed it away to examine later. But now it was time to escape.

“Seems foolish to take off one’s boots just before going out, don’t you think?” he replied with a flash of a smile, clambering up onto the windowsill. “Don’t wait up, I’ll be out all night.” Grinning at the surprised look on his friend’s face, he swung down from the ledge and let go, dropping softly in the alley below, like a cat.

He hadn’t gone far before he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Even though he knew, logically, that it must be John, he still felt a rush of surprise when he turned around and saw his friend rounding the corner and scrambling after him; he’d had to go back down the stairs to grab his own boots, and now he was struggling along, hopping on one foot and then the other, trying to keep up while tying his laces all at once. Even after all of the time they’d spent together that evening, it seemed impossible that John wanted to spend _more_ time with him. No one ever sought out his company like this. It was both alarming and flattering, and he felt oddly warm and nervous as he waited for him to catch up, trying to think of something to say. Thankfully, John spoke first and saved him the trouble.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“Oh come on, Sherlock. I saw you looking all… all secretive and purposeful. What’s this all about?” Interesting. His evasive strategies seemed to pique John’s interest even more.

“I thought I might… do a little stargazing,” he improvised, not even trying to sound serious, wanting to see if John would figure it out on his own. He had mentioned to him earlier that he needed supplies for the net. But would John figure out that harassing Philip had been a part of his strategy for stealing the key to get into the forge? Sherlock was an excellent pickpocket, but John was surprisingly observant and always seemed to pay close attention to Sherlock’s actions; it helped that he hadn’t been drunk like the rest of the island. Still, it was possible that he hadn’t noticed.

“Sherlock, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Wait, was John _worried_ about him? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“It’s nothing that need concern you…”

“Are you seeing someone?” The question was so blunt, so direct, that Sherlock just stared at him in complete shock for much longer than he should have, racking his brain as he tried to figure out how he had led John to that conclusion. Then he remembered he needed to answer him.

“Don’t you think I would have told you by now?” That wasn’t what he meant to say; why did he have to keep answering John with more questions? He made a mental note to work on that in the future.

“Well, I dunno, I honestly can’t imagine you with a girlfriend, so I don’t know what you’d do, if you’d tell me or not.” John suddenly looked mortified, as though he realized what he said might be taken the wrong way, but Sherlock quickly rescued him.

“Girlfriend? No, not really my area.” _Damn_. He swallowed and tugged uncomfortably at his shirt. Why did he have to word it like that? He hadn’t meant to imply – well, anything. He should really just stop talking. Avoid other humans altogether. That sounded like a good solution.

“Oh. Right.” What was that _look_ that danced across John’s eyes? What was he thinking? Had he imagined it? Why couldn’t he just deduce him like he could with everyone else? “So, you’re not seeing anyone.” It sounded like a reaffirming statement, but Sherlock heard the underlying question plain as day.

“No, I’m not seeing… anyone,” he confirmed, watching John intently, but his face remained smooth and expressionless. It was infuriating, and fascinating, but he didn’t want to ask anything else in case he’d entirely imagined the hidden layer in the conversation they’d just had, because even if it was real he wasn’t sure what it meant.

“So, where were you going?” John asked, breaking the oddly tense silence between them.

Instead of answering, Sherlock pulled the key to the forge out of his pocket and tossed it to John.

“I’ve still got a little mischief left for tonight. Could be dangerous.” John turned over the key in his deft, calloused hands, and for a split second Sherlock was sure he was about to be admonished for breaking all the rules, that John would throw up his arms and say he’d had enough and walk away, or worse, take the key and raise the alarm and identify Sherlock as a thief; but then he grinned and tossed the key back, stormy eyes flashing in the faint light of the crescent moon.

“Want some company?”

“By all means,” Sherlock replied, exhilaration flooding through him, and they set off into the night side by side.


	9. Chapter 9

The days passed in a blur. Hot summer afternoons toiling over the dragon-catching net in the shade of the redwood forest; cool evenings exploring every corner of Berk, picking blackberries and digging for fossils in the sandy banks of the stream, furnishing their hollow tree with carved treestump stools and a small table and stocking it with stolen nonperishable foodstuffs, knitted blankets, and even books and games to make their rainstorm retreats more pleasant; climbing to the highest rocky peak on the island at midnight to scan the skies for dragons with Sherlock’s spyglass; staying awake into the wee hours of the night, sitting on one or the other’s bed in Martha’s house, exchanging stories from the long years when they’d been apart.

John was fairly certain he would spend every waking moment with his friend if given the chance, but returning to the island meant he had duties like everyone else, so most of his mornings were devoted to dragon training with Angelo and Lestrade. All of the voyagers, regardless of age and experience, had returned to the dragon ring to hone their skills. His earlier fears of falling behind the younger children dissipated quickly as his muscles instantly recalled how to wield each weapon and he brushed away the dust in his memory that had settled over his knowledge of dragon species. A quick skim through the _Book of Dragons_ was all he needed to remember the important stats. But going through the moves of dragon fighting felt more like mere exercise or meditation than actual experience since there were no dragons to practice with. Generations ago, the dragon pit had housed captured dragons for the children-in-training to battle with, but the knowledge of how to catch them had died with the last dragonmaster. Rumor had it that he had left Berk before his death, and that it was his own son who was now known as the legendary dragonslayer. John had stopped believing in that story long ago. It was strange to think that Sherlock would be the first dragoncatcher in over a century if he succeeded – and only John would know about it. Keeping such a thrilling secret made him feel dangerously alive.

Before long, John was helping teach the children rather than learning alongside them. Lestrade seemed grateful for the assistance; his own expertise was in seafaring, fighting pirates, and giving orders to his shipmates – not ordering around children and pretending to battle monstrous animals he hadn’t encountered in nine years. John spent extra time with Molly, Archie, and Sally, who had developed a bit of an attachment to him on the voyage, and were extra nervous about fitting in. Molly was shy and quiet but persistent and surprisingly powerful, taking after her father; Archie was enthusiastic to the point of getting dangerously excited about handling new weapons; and Sally was stubborn and snarky, but undoubtedly the best fighter of the three, determined to be accepted by her new family.

In a way he liked spending time with the children, because they were easy to talk to. It was harder with people like Lestrade and Angelo. Angelo, for all that he was a big, gruff, battle-seasoned warrior, seemed at a loss when it came to talking to John; in fact, the whole village went out of their way to avoid him. He suspected they didn’t know what to say to him about his parents. Lestrade had been awfully quiet since they’d made landfall; he thought this had to do more with his personal problems than anything to do with John – apparently his wife from the Verland Isles was miserable on Berk. His heart went out to Molly, who was undoubtedly caught in the crossfire between them – an experience he understood all too well.

One morning, more than a fortnight after _The Night Fury’s_ arrival, John was teaching the three children how to use a crossbow when he sensed a darkly familiar presence behind him. Instructing the children to practice swordfighting with their wooden blades (he figured it couldn’t hurt for them to have experience with human-to-human combat as well), he turned to meet Mycroft, who was leaning on his ridiculous ax again.

“Hello, John,” he greeted him with a superficial smile. “How nice to see you assisting with the training. Do you find it satisfying?”

“Sorry?” John wasn’t sure what Mycroft was getting at, but he felt instantly suspicious.

“Is this it? Your call to glory? Training the children of Berk to defend the island against the ultimate enemy? Are you prepared to settle for a life of instructing the village’s offspring to battle dragons?”

“Well, to be honest, this was just a temporary…”

“Then what’s next? Do you intend to marry? You’re certainly of age, there are several eligible young women who might strike your fancy, everyone settles down for a bit of domestic bliss sooner or later.”

“No – gods, no. No, I’m not interested in marrying – I don’t even know any of those – eligible young women, no.” John was mortified; it hadn’t occurred to him that Mycroft would take it upon himself to rope him into some useful position while he was so put on the spot. He was fine with the way things were now, and how could he make that kind of a choice in one panicked moment?

“Excellent.” John blinked, confused by his chief’s response. “Because I have a job for you,” Mycroft continued, smiling in a way that suggested he already knew John’s answer would be.

“It’s not spying on Sherlock, is it?” He asked suspiciously.

“No, you’ve made it quite clear that it would be fruitless to ask that of you. This is an offer of a very different nature.” He paused for dramatic effect; John found it strange that he talked so politely, yet so pompously, when his younger brother had eloquence but absolutely no filter. “The royal family of the Verland Isles is hosting a tournament to select a prince for their eldest daughter, Mary, who is now of marriageable age. While it would not be in our best interests to have such direct ties to the royal family, there are numerous prizes for the high ranking champions, and those we could certainly use. I want you to participate in the tournament as a representative of Berk. Lestrade assures me you’re talented and experienced enough to win us just the right amount of fame and glory without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

“Um, thanks?” John’s head was reeling as he absorbed this new information.

“The tournament will take place on the autumn equinox. Our merchant fleet will leave in one moon for the harvest markets on the Mainland, with just enough time to leave you at the Verland Islands on the way, and they can stop for you on the way back.”

“Just – hold on for one moment. Would I be going alone?”

“I’m afraid I really can’t afford to send anyone with you; everyone will be needed here to defend against the dragons while the merchants are away.”

“Do I have any say in this? At all?”

“None at all, John.”

John blew out his breath, hoping his deep frustration would be apparent.

“And what if I just… don't? Show up on the Verland Isles and refuse to enter the tournament?”

“I certainly can’t stop you,” Mycroft acknowledged, his expression serious, “but I _can_ stop you from returning to Berk. Which might leave you with some… difficult goodbyes.” _Damn._ This complicated things a lot. “Come find me when you’re ready to discuss the details. And remember – you’ve just got one month left here. So make it count.”

 

 

“John!” Sherlock exclaimed brightly, looking up from a tangle of netting as John stormed into the hidden valley, where his friend was diligently working on the dragon-catching contraption. “I think I’ve finally – what happened?” The excitement on his face dissolved rapidly into alarm as he caught sight of John’s scowl. “Is everything all right?” A small part of John registered how touched he was that Sherlock cared, but the rest of him was still fuming.

“Your brother,” he growled, pacing around the clearing, keeping a good distance away from the equipment so as not to trip. “He’s up to something, I know he is. He’s sending me away.”

“He’s what?” Sherlock’s alarm seemed to grow as he watched John pace with an agitated expression. “Away where? Why would he do that?”

“You tell me why. He’s having me shipped to the Verland Isles. He wants me to compete in a tournament. The winner marries the heir to the throne, but he doesn’t want me to win – not first place, anyway. There are other prizes. It’s probably money he wants.”

“He can’t do that,” Sherlock protested in horror. “You can’t go. Do you want to go?”

“Of course not!” John wanted to punch something. “I’m not interested in helping that secretive, manipulative bastard. And when I leave, it’s going to be on my own terms.” He stopped pacing suddenly as his own words crashed down on him. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He hadn’t wanted Sherlock to know, not yet. Not before he’d asked him… Sherlock was staring at him, his body completely still, his face suddenly devoid of emotion. The air felt tense and cold between them. But it only lasted a heartbeat before Sherlock’s expression cleared.

“I’m almost finished with the net. Do you want to help me load it in? We’ve got to test it somehow before we try to use it. I’m hoping it will be ready by tonight. The dragons are bound to be back soon; they rarely wait this long between raids.” John felt his anger trickle away, replaced by a wave of some unidentifiable emotion that left his stomach twisted in knots and his chest hurting. He didn’t want to leave Sherlock for a whole season; he didn’t want to miss the moment when his friend caught a dragon, and he didn’t want to miss whatever brilliant, dangerous thing he did next. He took a deep breath, pushing away all of the unspoken thoughts that crowded his mind. He still had a month to figure something out, after all.

“Yeah, all right. What do you need me to do?”


	10. Chapter 10

“Almost there,” Sherlock panted as they dragged the dragon-catcher up the steep side of the rocky outcrop. The stars shone brilliantly above in the clear indigo sky, thriving off of the lack of competing light since it was a new moon. The conditions were perfect for spotting dragons, but less than ideal for carrying a heavy piece of equipment (even one with cleverly fashioned wheels) up the side of a mountain in near complete darkness. Both of them had sore arms and stubbed toes, but Sherlock couldn’t stop the anticipation from bubbling up in him as he imagined how it would feel, bringing a dragon to the ground.

They finally reached a flat expanse of stone at the top of the outcrop, where they were able to set down the dragon-catcher and lock the wheels. Sherlock peeled off his vest, tossed it on the ground and sat on it, unbuttoning his shirt a bit to let the cool night breeze cool him off. Pulling a small candle in a glass jar out of his pocket, he unwrapped it from its protective bundle and lit it with a match so that he could flip through his sketchbook and make a few last minute calculations. John stood silently next to him, gazing intently out over the ocean, a look of wonder and contentment flitting across his face, which glowed warmly from the light of the candle. Sherlock wondered if John would really leave Berk instead of playing along with Mycroft’s game. He knew his friend wasn’t telling him something, but his deductive powers utterly failed him when he tried to reason out what it was. But if his plan worked… If he did manage to capture a dragon, if he could figure out how to fly – it was possible that Mycroft’s scheme wouldn’t matter anymore. But he didn’t want to tell John, not yet. And even after spending the entire afternoon tweaking the machine and practicing shooting the net until they had the technique honed to perfection, he had no idea if his mad idea would succeed.

After drinking in his fill of the tranquil summer night scenery, John – who seemed unfazed by their previous exertion – took off his own vest and sat next to Sherlock, keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon as he scanned for dragons. The candle snuffed out in a playful gust of wind, and neither moved to light it again. It struck Sherlock how much John had changed since they’d played together as children, how he now carried the shadowed weight of a soldier somewhere within him, though he was careful to hide it on the surface. He’d seen battle, and death, and faced it himself; he’d said goodbye to his sister in a foreign land, he’d returned to a home where his mother was dead and his father was fading away, and now here he was, on a peaceful hilltop, watching, waiting, yearning for _something_ to happen. Even if it was something dangerous, terrifying, thrilling. Suddenly John turned to him, as though hearing his thoughts, tilting his head questioningly.

“What?” he asked softly.

“What do you mean, what?” Sherlock snapped back, though he kept his voice low too, just in case any villagers had wandered nearby.

“Why were you watching me?” Oh. Damn. How could he answer that?

“I deleted you,” he blurted out.

“What?” He could tell John was frowning just from the tone of his voice.

“When you left Berk. I deleted you. Because I didn’t want you to be gone. I… didn’t like being alone.” Well, that was an understatement. “So I had to erase the memories of when I was happy, with you. But it turns out I didn’t really delete you. It all came back when I saw you at our hollow tree, the day you came home.”

“ _That’s_ why you weren’t there when the ship docked,” John said, shaking his head with a small smile of dawning understanding in his voice, but it died quickly, fading into a quiet sadness. “Sherlock. I’m… so sorry. That I left. I didn’t know it would be so hard for you.”

“No, I understand why you had to go. But I never understood why I couldn’t go with you.” Now it was his turn to stare out across the ocean, avoiding his friend’s gaze. It came as a complete shock to him when John shifted next to him and placed his hand on his knee, giving him a comforting squeeze. He was even more surprised when John didn’t immediately remove his arm from where it leaned against his. Feeling oddly hyperaware of the exact spot where each of John’s fingers touched the sleeve of his shirt, he forced himself to breathe evenly, and slowly managed to relax, part of him trying not to think about how nice it was because he knew it was unlikely to happen again, while the rest of him savored the experience of being comforted and marveled at the way he seemed to fit against John’s side so perfectly.

“I missed you so much,” John said so softly that Sherlock thought he must have imagined it. “I probably would have stayed in Crescent Bay with Harry if it wasn’t for you, you know. But I was always wondering what trouble you’d be getting into without me.”

Sherlock smiled a bit at that, but said nothing, unsure if he was even supposed to respond. And was it normal for friends to sit this close? Why was this gesture of affection acceptable to him when he wouldn’t let anyone else – even Martha – so much as come within a foot of his personal space? Why were his eyes stinging – had he developed a sudden allergy to some nearby flowering plant? And why did he have the strangest urge to bury his face in John’s neck?

He was saved from having to answer these questions when he felt John tense beside him, his hand darting out and grabbing the spyglass as he leapt to his feet.

“I think I saw something!”

Sherlock scrambled to his feet and squinted out towards the southwestern horizon, the direction the dragons always came from. At first he saw nothing, but then a star winked out for half a second – had a dragon flown in front of it? And all at once he saw them, barely a shade darker than the sky behind them, gliding in towards the village, speeding closer every second. The watchtower horns blew; one of the watchmen had spotted them. Fires flickered to life in the village as torches were lit and fire arrows readied. From the high outcrop, the battle cries of the villagers who spilled out of their houses brandishing weapons sounded distant and almost surreal. The first shriek of a dragon cut the stillness of the night like a blade.

John stood at the ready with a stink bomb in a slingshot in his right hand in case they needed a diversion, his left hand tense on the lever of the dragon-catcher – it worked best when they coordinated the release of the net with two separate levers. Sherlock took his place at his side and snatched away the spyglass, searching for possible target. The dragons were swooping down towards the houses now, shooting fire at the thatch and wooden roofs. But then an eerie, chilling cry made him drop the spyglass and look up, higher, heart pounding – could it be?

“Night fury!” he whispered in awe, watching the jet-black figure cut through the sky at twice the speed of the others, shooting lightning blue balls of flame into the village below.

“Sherlock, are you _insane?_ You could never catch a night fury, you’ve only got one net, even if you _did_ catch him he’d be too dangerous to get close to, you can’t possibly even be considering—”

Sherlock tuned out John’s increasingly desperate pleas, focusing on nothing but the elegantly twisting and dipping serpentine black dragon that cavorted across the sky, causing more damage than all of the dragons below combined. Following its movement closely, he maneuvered the dragon-catcher until it was tracking the night fury’s flight; after a moment he had memorized the pattern, watched the stunning creature dive, fire, flare its wings, rise, spin – now!

For all that John had seemed desperate to stop him, he was ready at the exact moment, and without a word their hands pulled the levers in unison, propelling the net in a perfect trajectory towards the night fury, who had stalled for a fraction of a second to readjust its wings. That second was all it took. The spinning net collided with the dragon in midflight and wrapped around its wings, sending it careening out of sight towards the sea on the far side of the village.

They turned to each other, half-dazed, open-mouthed.

“You hit it,” John said in disbelieving amazement.

“ _We_ hit it,” Sherlock corrected with a faint grin. “Oh gods. We actually brought down a night fury, and now…” Something clicked into place. “John. John! He landed in the ocean, John, what if he can’t breathe, he can’t swim, the net, we’ve got to—”

“Let’s go,” John responded, quickly grabbing his shoulderbag and taking off down the mountain path at full speed, Sherlock close on his heels. They could come back for the dragon-catcher later. All of his excitement was dissolving into panic and terror. He hadn’t meant to _kill_ the dragon. He’d wanted him alive to study, but it wasn’t the failure of his experiment that he cared about now, it was the thought of the fierce animal tied and trapped under the waves, struggling to escape, to breathe, to live. _I did this_ , he thought numbly as they careened down the hillside, skirting the village and heading for the sandy cliffs that led to the beach.

They half-climbed, half-fell down the sandy banks that led to the shore, reaching out for each other in the dark to steady one another as they went. Sherlock scanned the waves desperately – the night fury wouldn’t have landed far from the shore, but would he float? The waves were black under the night sky; how on earth would they be able to spot a black dragon in the dark sea?

Suddenly a massive figure crashed out of the surf, letting out a bloodcurdling cry as it arched back into the water.

“John, wait!” Sherlock gasped, grabbing his friend’s arm as they skidded to a stop on the wet sand. “That… wasn’t a night fury.”

The creature reappeared once more, but this time it wasn’t alone. The night fury thrashed in the water before it, blue lightning crackling over its body as the water fought with its inner fire; it must have inhaled seawater. Its powerful limbs tore at the net, but it was too tangled to fully escape, and the water dragon was gaining on it.

“That’s a Scauldron!” John shouted as the silhouette of the great animal became clearer. “Our night fury won’t stand a chance against it!” Sherlock knew he was right, but there had to be _something_ they could do to intervene. He couldn’t stand the idea that he might be responsible for the death of the night fury he’d brought down. “Sherlock, we should get out of here, this isn’t safe!” But he refused to budge when John tugged at his arm. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into his hands. Think. _Think!_

And then it clicked.

“John, the stink bombs!” he yelled, grabbing his shoulderbag and working it off of his arm, rummaging through it frantically.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” John yelled back, panic in his voice.

“Probably!”

“This isn’t safe!”

“Yes, you mentioned that already!” His hand closed around a stinkbomb. Spinning back to the impending dragon fight, he surged into the water; he had to get as close to the Scauldron as possible for this to work.

The Scauldron was looming over the night fury now, whose struggles were becoming weaker as the waves battered it again and again. The great sea dragon seemed to have no interest in the tiny humans nearby, not when such rare prey was wrapped up before it. That worked to his advantage. He tuned out John’s desperate protests and stopped, waist deep in the push and pull of the waves, waiting for the right moment…

The Scauldron lunged for the night fury, and Sherlock threw the stinkbomb with perfect aim straight into its gaping mouth. The second its jaws touched the electrified skin of the black dragon, the bomb exploded in its mouth. Sherlock had a split second to relish his triumph before the Scauldron crashed into the sea, screaming hoarsely in fury, sending a ten foot wave in all directions that knocked him underwater and dragged him chaotically along the sand, disorienting him so much that he didn’t know which way to strike for air. But then strong arms wrapped around his waist and tugged him gently to the surface, and he gratefully sucked in huge gulps of air as John lifted him over his shoulder and carried him to the shore, cursing him in a string of creative language that he had undoubtedly learned from his fellow sailors. Sherlock found himself strangely touched by John’s anger.

“You are a complete and utter dickhead,” John concluded furiously as he carefully set his friend on his feet. “Gods, Sherlock. Don’t ever scare me like that again, you hear?” And for a moment Sherlock forgot everything – forgot the reason they were there, forgot that he was drenched with seawater and probably draped with seaweed and caked with wet sand, forgot that somewhere above the cliffs a battle raged. Maybe the lack of air was making him feel so dizzy, maybe the adrenaline high was the only reason his heart was beating so fast – but nonetheless, as he stared down at John’s night-dark face, he could only deduce that being rescued by John was quite an enjoyable experience and was perhaps something that should be repeated in the future. Probably multiple times.

The strange moment passed, and reality flooded back.

“The night fury,” he rasped, his throat raw from swallowing saltwater. “Where is it?”

Together they turned to scan the shore. There, fifty feet down the beach, a dark mass lay unmoving on the sand. Sherlock broke into a run, fear rising like bile in his throat, but John grabbed his shirt and forcefully tugged him back.

“We don’t know if it’s alive,” he whispered gruffly. “But if it is, it’s probably hurt and scared, and it’s not likely to thank us politely for saving its life and invite us to tea. So just. Be careful, and go _slowly_ , for gods’ sakes.” Sherlock huffed in annoyance, but nodded in assent; he knew John was right. Still, John didn’t let go of his shirt as they made their way closer; clearly he didn’t trust Sherlock to keep his word.

Soon they were close enough to see that the dragon was still breathing, much to Sherlock’s relief, though its eyes were closed and its body limp. It was still tangled in the netting, and there was something dark on the sand near its tail –

“Oh no,” Sherlock whispered, gripped with a cold horror. “John, look at its tail.”

One of its tail flaps had been torn away in the fight and was bleeding all over the ground. The two friends stared for a few long moments, waiting for something to happen, but the night fury didn’t move.

“I have to fix this,” Sherlock whispered, and before John could stop him he shrugged out of his shirt and darted away from his friend’s grasp, drawing a knife from his belt and kneeling next to the jet black dragon, cutting through the net in every place he could reach. Just when the last strand snapped free, the creature before him shifted –

And suddenly Sherlock was pinned to the ground beneath two powerful forelegs. The sleek round face of the night fury filled his vision, its green-gold eyes burning into his own, its hot, fishy breath blasting across his face, and it was opening its gaping mouth – how strange that no blue fire was gathering in its throat, Sherlock thought – and then he heard John screaming his name, and he’d never heard so much fear in anyone’s voice, and then something was crashing into him and pushing him away while the night fury screamed. The dragon leapt into the air to flee, only to come crashing down further along the beach; he couldn’t remain aloft with his injured tail. Half cantering, half flying, the night-black creature fled towards the western end of the island, away from the village.

“Sherlock! Sherlock, are you alright?” John was kneeling over him, grasping his shoulders, his face, scanning his body for any signs of injury.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock coughed, struggling to sit up, brushing sand out of his hair. It was starting to sink in, the fact that John had saved his life, that John had thrown himself in front of the most dangerous known dragon to protect him. “That… that thing you did. That was, um, good,” he told John.

“I told you not to scare me like that again,” John replied hoarsely before pulling him into a bruising hug. Sherlock was momentarily transported back to the day – it seemed like ages ago now – when he’d tumbled down the hill next to the waterfall and the hollow tree to land at John’s feet, when he’d first remembered the friend he’d been missing for nine years, when John had smiled at him and hugged him. It was just as surprising now as it was then, but this time he reached back, grateful for something to hold on to.

“What do we do now?” John asked as he let him go. The two friends stared at each other, ruffled and sand-covered, still half-dazed from the chaotic string of events that had just occurred.

And suddenly they were both laughing, and it was breathless and shaky and unbelievable but so incredibly real, and Sherlock couldn’t stop staring at John, who was leaning against him and giggling uncontrollably.

“That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” John gasped out mirthfully.

“And you went on a nine-year voyage looking for a legendary dragonslayer,” Sherlock pointed out, evoking another round of helpless laughter. But it couldn’t last; the shock and adrenaline were wearing off now, and more serious matters had to be dealt with.

“Well. One of us should go back and hide the dragoncatcher,” Sherlock decided out loud, “while the other needs to follow the dragon and make sure it’s not getting into trouble. We can’t let the other villagers find it, or they’re bound to try to kill it. At least if they find the machine, we can get away with a half-truth – that we wanted to catch a dragon – without letting on that it worked.”

“Right. And I suppose you think you’re the one who should go after the dragon,” John sighed. “I know, I know, I can’t stop you, you’ve proved that enough times already. But… look, your knife is broken. I think the dragon stepped on it.” He reached into the sand and picked up a few pieces of shattered blade. “Can’t have been much good in the first place if it broke so easily. Here, take mine,” he offered. “I won’t need it for this.”

“John,” Sherlock interrupted, shocked. “You can’t just give me your knife. Captain Lestrade gave it to you before the voyage. It’s – it’s special, I can’t just – what if I –”

“Sherlock, don’t be daft. You think I care more about this old thing than keeping you safe? Yeah, it’s a good knife, but – you know what? I want you to keep it. I’ve always thought it was lucky. Might be good for you. It’s about time I had a new one made anyway.”

Sherlock was speechless. No one had ever given him anything of such importance. It felt unnaturally heavy in his hand, yet somehow familiar and reassuring. Slipping it back into its sheath, he clasped it carefully to his belt, taking a half-second to admire how it looked before turning back to John.

John. What an extraordinary human.

“Thank you,” he said softly, unable to look him in the eye. “I _will_ be careful, you know. After all, someone’s got to be around to keep you in trouble.” John laughed, and Sherlock finally looked into his dark eyes, and by chance they had both shifted forwards and John’s face was much closer than he’d expected and his expression was impossible to read in the dark; but the starlight was enough to catch on John’s tongue as he licked his lips (Sherlock had noticed that he did that a lot, an absent-minded reflex) and then he was staring at the soft line of his mouth, but it only lasted for a second before he snapped out of his trancelike state and backed away, reminding himself not to invade John’s personal space.

“Right,” John said after a long pause, his voice sounding slightly odd. “Right. Yeah. I’m just going to… um… go get the uh…”

“Dragoncatcher,” Sherlock supplied helpfully, feeling rather intrigued by John’s lack of eloquence.

“Yes, that. So. See you at home later?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Well. Good luck, then.”

“Good luck,” Sherlock echoed, and they parted, John clambering back up the sandy cliffs while Sherlock jogged down the beach in the same direction as the night fury, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to watch his friend’s silhouette as he climbed, until he tripped over a piece of driftwood and fell flat on his face. Shaking his head as he picked himself up from the sand, he brushed himself off and continued running after the dragon tracks, forcing himself not to look back again.


	11. Chapter 11

John never made it to the dragoncatcher. Instead he ran straight into Mycroft as he skirted the village, where the sounds of battle had died away; the dragons were gone. Mycroft was in full battle gear, ax in one hand and torch in the other, and thick blood was smeared across his shoulder – dragon or human, it was impossible to say in the dim light. Philip stood behind him, arms crossed and brow furrowed, his elbow leaning against the dragoncatcher, which they had evidently discovered and trundled down the mountain.

“John,” Mycroft greeted him coolly, but he thought he detected an undercurrent of worry. “I presume you were with my brother.”

“Yeah, I was,” John admitted; there was no point in lying. “He’s fine, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“And where is he?”

“I dunno,” John said, and he wasn’t even lying; the dragon could have gone anywhere. “He ran off, you know how he is. He wanted to be alone.”

“Can you explain the meaning of this?” Mycroft thrust his torch dangerously close to the wooden contraption, and John winced; he doubted Sherlock would want to use it again, but he hated the thought of it going up in flames after all of their hard work building it.

“Sherlock was trying to catch a dragon,” he told the chief; as Sherlock had said, it didn’t matter if their plan was revealed as long as no one thought it worked.

“And that involved abandoning this… machine to take a dip in the ocean in the middle of a battle?” His voice was icy calm.

“He wanted to try to get the net back. Saw it fall near the shore. I had to drag him out of the waves; it wasn’t safe.”

“I see. So he was not successful?” Mycroft queried, watching him intently.

“Of course not.”

“And I suppose you were supporting this foolish nonsense from the beginning?” John bristled at his condescending tone, but bit back an angry retort.

“Look. _You_ told me to look after him. Just because I was gone for nine years doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what he’s like. When he has an idea, there’s no stopping him from trying to make it work. Besides, it was a pretty brilliant idea. I thought it was best to help him and stay with him to keep him safe like you asked. I did drag him out of the ocean tonight, after all.”

“Well. For that, I am grateful. But I don’t think you realize the full extent of what you’ve done. You see, it may have slipped your mind that when the dragons attack, our entire village is endangered. Our warriors are wounded, our families and children are threatened, our homes go up in flames. Which is why we expect everyone able to wield a weapon to be there during the battle. The both of you ought to have been there, fighting alongside the rest of us.”

“But Sherlock thought if he could catch a dragon, if he could study one up close, he might be able to learn something useful about them. Something more important than adding a set of arms to a battle.”

“ _If_ he could catch a dragon, well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?” Mycroft retorted with a sigh. “John, your father’s house is gone. It burned to the ground, and unfortunately no one is willing to take him in. I’m ordering you to stay with him and rebuild his house. There are lots of repairs to be done, and we can’t afford anyone else to take on the responsibility. That ought to keep you occupied until the ships leave for the Verland Isles.”

John stared at him in horror.

“You’ll just have to sleep in tents until the new house is built. Find Captain Lestrade when you get back to the village, he’ll provide you with them.” His dismissal was obvious. Fighting his growing rage and panic, John gave him a curt nod and strode past him, and though he didn’t look back, he saw the dancing light of a fire glowing brighter and brighter behind him, casting his own shadow long before him as Mycroft set fire to the dragoncatcher.

Out of sight of the others, John stopped and let his anger rise to the surface. Incomplete, painful half-formed thoughts questions chased each other through his mind. He knew he had been ignoring his father since returning to Berk, and part of him felt immensely guilty for it; but the rest of him had felt liberated by the realization that he owed nothing to the man. And yet, here he was, tasked with rebuilding his home, a less-than-subtle attempt on Mycroft’s part at forcing their reconciliation. But John didn’t want reconciliation. He didn’t need to be reminded of the yelling, the breaking, the stench of drink, the sound of Harry screaming and crying, the frightened and sympathetic glances of neighbors who knew but did nothing. Just thinking about it made him feel physically ill. But there was no arguing with Mycroft. The sooner he got this over with, the better. Then he could go back to the way things were before.

Except things had already changed – there was a dragon involved now, and he only had a month until he was sailing to the Verland Isles; Mycroft seemed determined to meddle with his life. A chill swept across him as he wondered if it was more than that – what if he was trying to keep John away from Sherlock? And if that were true, why? He tried to shake it off as a coincidence, but the uneasiness lingered as he slowly made his way towards the firelight of the village.

As distracted as he was by the task that lay ahead of him, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from straying back to Sherlock, reliving the chaotic scene on the beach; the terrifying moment when his friend had been swept underwater when the Scauldron crashed into the waves; the feel of his thin frame draped over his shoulder as he carried him to the shore; his fear when Sherlock dashed forward to free the entangled night fury, and his terror when the dragon had pinned him to the ground. He was still numb with shock at all the ways they could have died that night, but he admitted to himself that there was more to his feelings – admiration for Sherlock’s cleverness in realizing that the stinkbomb, which must have been made with the same flammable substance breathed out by the Hideous Zippleback, would ignite inside the Scauldron’s mouth when it touched the night fury’s blue flame. And he felt admiration too for whatever foolish bravery and compassion had driven him to free the wounded creature; for all that Sherlock had told him that John was the one with the strong moral compass, he wasn’t the one who had taken action to save the helpless dragon. Reliving the scene again and again, he remembered his sheer relief as he had held his friend close, and the giddy laughter that followed. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than for Sherlock to be keeping pace at his side; he wanted to confide in him, let out his anger over having to face his father; he wanted Sherlock to make some characteristically witty remark that would make him laugh and relax, wanted to exchange amused but knowing looks…

The last memory he allowed himself to reflect on before he entered the village was the moment when he’d given his knife to Sherlock. He’d thanked him so quietly, so softly; it had left a strange feeling in his chest – a desire to give him more, to see that look of genuine surprise and gratitude again. Perhaps it was a selfish desire, but it wasn’t easily banished.

The smell of smoke brought him out of his reflections; the air was thick with it, green-gray clouds of billowing ash that choked the pathways and made the torchlight dim and weary. The villagers had gathered in the square, where they were taking turns cleaning and binding each other’s wounds. It didn’t look half as bad as after a pirate attack aboard _The Night Fury_ , which was a relief. He scanned the square until he spotted Captain Lestrade attempting to reassure his wife, who seemed alternately terrified and furious; this was probably due to the fact that it was her first encounter with dragons. John felt nothing but sympathy for her – the only difference between him and her was that she pined for the Verland Isles, while he pined for adventure – anything that would take him away from Berk. Their argument looked serious, but Mycroft had ordered him to request some tents, so he took a deep breath (nearly choking on acrid smoke from it) and approached him cautiously.

Luckily, Lestrade’s wife was already storming away by the time he reached him. Hanging back for a moment while the captain ran his hand through his silver hair and let out a ragged sigh, he stole another glance around the square looking for his father. There was no sign of him.

“Oh, hello John, didn’t see you there,” Lestrade greeted him, seeming to shake off his woes and rebuild his composure in a heartbeat. “Mycroft sent you, yeah?”

“Yes, sir,” John answered, unable to hold back a tiny sigh of his own. “I’m meant to ask for a set of tents.”

“Right, for you and your father. I’ve got ‘em just around here. Where were you during the battle? You haven’t got a scratch on you.”

“I was with Sherlock,” John explained as he followed Lestrade around the corner of the forge. “It’s a long story. Basically an experiment that didn’t work out.”

“Oh gods,” Lestrade muttered as he rummaged through a pile of emergency supplies. “Well, it’s a good thing he has you looking after him. Right, here you go. Now, I believe your father is still back by the old house; last I saw him he wouldn’t budge. Best go and see to him. Come find me if you need anything.”

John thanked him and headed up the hill away from the square with a bundled tent slung over each shoulder. Anxiety drummed in his chest; it reminded him of the sick, buzzing feeling he’d gotten when he drank coffee for the first time in the Verland Isles. This was exactly the same, an uncomfortable, uncontrollable nervousness that clawed at him so deeply he felt it in a painfully physical way. He tried to pretend he was hauling the tents into the forest to go adventuring with Sherlock (and for a heartbeat he contemplated doing just that), but he was too jittery to focus on the fantasy.

Just another step, he told himself. And another, and another. And suddenly he was rounding the corner and there was his house – or what remained of it, anyway – a pile of smoldering wood and crumbled stone, collapsed in a pitiful heap, the moldy thatch burning in a falsely cheery way. He felt oddly triumphant, seeing the old wreck of a house finally defeated, but then he saw the tiny figure of his father folded in front of the flames, rocking back and forth. He couldn’t take another step. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring; his mind went blank as he built wall upon wall around his heart, sealing his emotions inside. Reaching into his pocket, searching for some reassurance, his fingers closed around the dragon scale he’d picked up on his first day back. The memory of Sherlock’s impressive deductions flooded through him, and though he couldn’t quite smile, it was enough to get him moving again. Deciding it was easier to say nothing, he dropped his bags in the clearing in front of the collapsed house and started to set up the tents; he wondered how long it would take his father would notice.

It seemed pretty implicit that Mycroft wanted him to stay with his father at all times until the new house was built, but he’d promised to meet Sherlock at Martha’s later, and he had to find out how everything went with the dragon. The more he thought about it, the more worried he became; what if something had gone wrong (again)? Would Sherlock really be reasonably careful? Even wounded, the night fury could be a deadly foe. He forced himself to remember that Sherlock had managed nine years of getting into dangerous situations without him, but somehow he suspected nothing had ever been quite _this_ dangerous.

Soon he became aware that his father was muttering to himself. In spite of his reservations, John paused from hammering in one of the stakes to see if he could discern what he was talking about.

“… didn’t mean for this to happen… could’ve trusted me… the stove, the stove, left it on again, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… don’t understand why you weren’t there… I tried to get you out, get you out… come back, I didn’t mean any of it…”

John felt a mixture pity and anger rising in his throat. He had obviously drunk his way through the battle; he wasn’t even wearing armor, just dirty nightclothes. He looked so frail and broken; the detached part of John wanted to help him and comfort him, but the rest of him felt his anger burning even brighter. He owed this man nothing. Nine years apart had allowed John to break the ties and grow into his own person, to heal as much as he could from the traumas of his childhood, and he knew he could only be himself if he left his father – and Berk – behind for good. But as he’d told Sherlock before, he was going to leave on his own terms. He would go to the Verland Isles at Mycroft’s request. He would compete in the tournament, fail to win, and return at the end of the season. And then he would come back for Sherlock. He had no idea how to ask him to leave the island with him, was terrified that he would say no; but after so long a separation their bond seemed stronger than ever, and he couldn’t imagine a future without him.

The thought remained with him as he finished furnishing the tents by unrolling the sleeping mats inside. His father hadn’t moved, but John figured he would turn around eventually and notice the shelter behind him. At least he hoped. Pretending he wasn’t caving in to his fears of interacting with his father, he slipped away into the night, taking the long route to Martha’s by trekking through the scrubby, shadowy hillside. Let Mycroft discover his empty tent; he didn’t care. He could always say he went back to Martha’s for a change of clothes. He knew he’d have to return to clear away the rubble from the collapsed house in the morning and begin work on a new one, but for now, he would wait for Sherlock to return, however long that took.


	12. Chapter 12

Tracking the dragon was the easy part. It was covering the tracks that took time, time Sherlock didn’t have. For the hundredth time he wished John were there at his side so that he could order him around. There were so many scales that had to be collected, drops of blood that had to be kicked over with sand, suspiciously broken bits of driftwood that had to be scattered, dragon prints that had to be covered. He knew there was a high probability that Mycroft had discovered John by now, and if that were the case, he was bound to be suspicious, no matter how good a lie his friend told. If he were to be discovered, his current plan was to go with a half truth, explaining his attempt to capture a dragon but setting it up as a failure (which was most likely the story John had gone with). That led to the obvious conclusion that he was just searching for the missing net. He only hoped that it wouldn’t wash up on the shore as the tide came in, because it would be clear that _something_ had been tangled in it, and Mycroft’s sharp eye might notice that the strands had been cut by a knife and not a dragon’s claws.

The drops of blood soon became spaced farther and farther apart, yet the dragon’s strides and attempts at flight appeared no less rigorous, which was encouraging. On and on he went, marveling at the night fury’s power and speed; judging by the marks, it could be more than halfway around the island by now. It was a chilling thought. He wondered if he should have circled around the _other_ way so that if it continued along the beach he could have confronted it before it reached the docks. But it was too late for that now. The stars spun slowly across the sky; the waves crept closer as the tide came in, covering most of the evidence, which allowed Sherlock to travel faster, though he grew concerned that he might have lost important information to the waves.

He’d skirted the west side of the island, where the cliffs arced into a sheer rocky mountainside and then descended back into steep, dense forest, and started heading back east along the north side when a sudden thought occurred to him. The night fury was clearly avoiding water, so what would it do when it arrived at the falls? Sherlock could already hear the faint roaring of the falling water up ahead. The stream flowing into the ocean was fairly wide and deep – too wide for the dragon to cross, based on the gaps he’d observed between its footprints when it had attempted to fly. Confined by the ocean on one side and the steep, tangled forest on the other, the dragon’s choices were limited; stop and rest, attempt to sear the forest with fire to clear a path towards the center of the island, or –

Sherlock froze. A pair of bright green eyes stared at him from not thirty feet away; he’d been so focused on the marks in the sand he’d barely glanced up to see what was ahead of him. The night fury had stopped dead in its tracks and was watching Sherlock’s approach intently. The beach was narrow here; if the dragon wanted to continue, it would have to either knock him over or leap over him. But it remained still, eyes locked on him, showing no signs of moving. So Sherlock sat down on the sand and prepared to wait. After barely a second of hesitation, the night fury mirrored him, settling into a more comfortable position and curling its wounded tail in front of its feet. Sherlock found himself wondering if this was some sort of game to see who would look away first. He resolved not to lose, partly because he feared the dragon might take advantage of any lapse of attention, but partly because he sensed that it might be the first step to winning the fearsome creature’s trust. It seemed that hours passed as the two gazed at each other. Sherlock took the opportunity to commit the anatomy he could see to memory. He’d never been able to get a good look at a still dragon before – they were always flying too fast. He catalogued the bulges of muscle in the legs, the angles of the joints, the way the long, powerful wings folded away when on land; he watched the shoulders and chest rise and fall with each breath, he stared deep into the wide pupils and marveled at the way the green irises glowed in the dark.

They probably would have gone on examining one another until dawn if the herd of startled deer hadn’t come dashing onto the beach. Having grown accustomed to nothing but the sound of waves crashing on the shore, the racket of the heavy hooved animals thrashing through the undergrowth sent a jolt of shock through his system, causing him to leap to his feet. Evidently the dragon was just as startled, for it spun on its heels and dashed away towards the falls. The deer wheeled about in the sand, confused and terrified at having inadvertently stumbled upon a dragon on the beach; barely paying any heed to Sherlock, who was now running past them in pursuit of the night fury, they ran alongside him for a moment before dashing back into the woods and disappearing into the murky shadows. The falls were just around the bend, he was almost there –

The night fury released a shrill screech of surprise when Sherlock raced around the corner. Stumbling over a piece of driftwood, he felt his shirt slide up, revealing the knife, eliciting another scream of terror from the cornered dragon. Before Sherlock could toss the knife away to show that he didn’t intend any harm, the black creature hurled itself at the waterfall, crying out in pain as its body passed through the curtain of water in a jolt of blue lightning fire. Now trapped inside the cave underneath the falls, the night fury let out a series of heartwrenching, keening wails. Clambering to his feet, Sherlock watched as the dragon sent fireball after blue fireball into the sheet of water to no avail. Giving up, it moved on to the stone walls of the cave; he could see the blue illumination each time the fire filled the space. Soon the bursts of fire subsided, and the mournful wailing resumed.

It was clear that the night fury was not going to try to exit the cave any time soon; the pain of passing through the water had been too intense. After the shock wore off, Sherlock realized that in some ways, this situation was perfect – the dragon was safely hidden on the side of the island that the rest of the villagers feared to approach, and Sherlock would be able to care for it by tossing food through the water with minimal fear of being attacked. He might even get a chance to observe the tail wound to see if the damage could be fixed; he needed to know if the dragon would be able to fly again before he found a way to coax him back through the falls. Realizing that there was nothing more he could do at the moment, he decided to head back to Martha’s; he had so much to tell John, and the excitement of the night had worn him out – for once he was ready to collapse into a soft bed. But come morning, he’d be back to planning ways to steal fish from the fishing boats to feed the night fury, who was probably just as drained and exhausted as he was. Before he left the falls, he climbed over some rocks at the edge of the water and got as close as he could without touching it, just in case the dragon’s body touched the water and sent a surge of electricity at him.

“I’ll be back soon,” he called softly through the water. The keening wails subsided instantly. “I’m just going to go and get some rest, but I’ll be back in the morning with food. Don’t worry, it’s all going to be okay. I’ll take care of you. You just have to promise me you’ll stay here and not hurt yourself trying to escape. This is the safest place for you right now.” Although he couldn’t see through the dark water, he had the strangest sense that the dragon was poised just on the other side of the falling curtain, listening. “I’m sorry,” he almost whispered, not convinced his voice could be heard over the sound of the crashing water. “I didn’t mean for all of this to happen, but it was still my fault. And I’m going to fix it somehow. I promise.”

With that he turned and made his way into the forest, jogging swiftly along the fastest route to the village, a new purpose burning in his veins and lending him a new energy.


	13. Chapter 13

“John!” Sherlock whispered loudly as he crept up the stairs and into the hall outside their bedrooms. He peeked in through the open door to John’s room, but his bed was empty. “John?” No movement, no sound. John definitely wasn’t there. Sighing in disappointment and trying to push away new worries that clawed at him, he stole into his own room and shut the door. It took him a second to realize that he was not alone. Cursing himself for his slow wits, he peered at the form that was splayed out on his bed, breathing slow and deep.

John was fast asleep, spread out across the blanket holding his pillow in one arm.

Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat. He looked so soft and vulnerable; his mouth was slightly open, his eyelids fluttered, his loosely curled left hand twitched as though he were dreaming of holding on to something. He’d kicked his shoes off and left them by the door. Sherlock remembered the night when John had admonished him for leaving his boots on in the bedroom, the way he’d stared and stared at his friend’s face, and now here he was with nothing in between them but Sherlock’s own hammering heart. Sidling closer, he sat down on the mattress as slowly as possible to avoid waking him. He knew that nine years of voyaging had left John a light sleeper alert to any possibility of danger, and that if he wasn’t careful he might startle John awake and receive an automatic blow to the face. But he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help seizing the opportunity to memorize the sound of his breathing, to examine the way the moonlight glinted on his eyelashes. He reached out his fingertips and held them, trembling, in front of John’s parted lips, wanting to know what his warm breath would feel like. And there was so much more he wanted to know. Were his cheeks as soft and smooth as they looked? What would his hair feel like under his hands - smooth like fine sand, or coarse and rough like dry autumn leaves? John stirred suddenly, and he snatched his hand away, feeling a bit dazed. He wasn’t sure what was happening to him. He’d never been so drawn to anyone or anything before. It made him feel dangerously out of control - and he loved it.

“John,” he whispered roughly, “wake up.” John seemed to recognize his voice; he murmured something unintelligible but didn’t open his eyes. “John,” Sherlock whispered a bit more loudly, and put his hand on his arm. John rolled towards him and opened his eyes, and Sherlock was startled at how close their faces were; he hadn’t realized how much he’d been leaning forward.

“Oh, Sherlock,” John mumbled in mingled surprise and confusion. “Where…” he looked around and seemed to realize where he was. There was something endearing about watching his expressions shift as he remembered everything that had happened in the past few hours. “Gods, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. You took forever coming back. I meant to go out looking for you if you hadn’t made it back by dawn. Gods. I can’t believe I just left you… what was I thinking?” He seemed to be talking mostly to himself. “Are you alright?” he asked anxiously, staring up into Sherlock’s eyes.

“Yes, but I have so much to tell you.” He launched into his story about finding the dragon and accidentally frightening it under the waterfall. John had untangled himself from the pillow and was now propped up against it, watching him raptly, hanging on to every word with wide eyes; all traces of sleepiness had evaporated.

“You don’t think it’ll try to escape?”

“No, it can’t make it through the water safely. It’s weak from its wound - another shock could kill it, and it knows it.” Sherlock felt another pang of guilt. “I’m going to go back in the morning to try to help it. I don’t think it’ll hurt me. I think it knows I’m trying to fix this.”

“Yeah, but does it also know we’re the ones who got it into this mess?” John asked worriedly. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Sherlock. I’d go with you myself, but I have to stay in the village.”

Bitterly, he told Sherlock all about his meeting with Mycroft the night before, and how he was supposed to rebuild his father’s house. Sherlock listened with a growing rage - how could his brother be so insensitive, so cruel? John didn’t deserve any of this. He wasn’t the one who should be punished for Sherlock’s deviance. Then again, maybe that’s exactly what this was - Sherlock’s own punishment, with Mycroft keeping John occupied with something other than him.

“Listen, Sherlock… I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I think… I’m almost certain that Mycroft is trying to keep us apart. I have a very bad feeling about all of this. I think we need to be careful about who sees us together.”

Sherlock swallowed painfully, but nodded. He tried to tell himself that John wasn’t actually saying they shouldn’t spend time together, but rather that they had to be discreet about it, which were two very different things. Still, the idea of not being able to spend all of his time with John hurt. They’d become practically inseparable since John had returned. How could he go back to being alone now that he had remembered, relearned what this felt like? It was a small comfort that John looked just as unhappy about the situation as he felt.

“I’ll be busy looking after the night fury anyway,” he told John, trying halfheartedly to sound cheerful and reassuring. He desperately wanted to tell him about his plans to study the dragon’s body structure so that he could begin constructing a flying device, but what if it didn’t work? He didn’t want to get his hopes up. And yet it was hard to let John leave without telling him he had a plan in mind that would allow both of them to be free.

The gray light of dawn was beginning to spill through the window.

“Promise you’ll be careful,” John said to him again as he got up and went to put on his boots. Sherlock just nodded glumly. The excitement from the night’s events had faded into a dull, lonely exhaustion. He sat on the bed and watched John tying his laces, feeling torn between slumping down on the soft mattress to embrace a much needed sleep and following John down the stairs to the door just to spend one more moment drinking in their comfortable shared silence, not knowing when he would be able to enjoy it again next. It wasn’t hard to decide, really, but when he stood up to follow, John looked at him in surprise and then gave him a gentle, affectionate smile that made him feel slightly dizzy (or was that just his exhaustion?).

“Go to sleep, Sherlock, you look like you’re going to pass out on the spot,” John murmured, putting his hands on his shoulders to guide him back onto the bed. Without planning to, without knowing why, Sherlock reached out and touched his arms so that they were standing as though poised to dance. Time seemed to freeze - Sherlock was sure he stopped breathing, and his heart missed a beat - and then he was sitting on the bed again, and John was stepping away, whispering a promise to sneak back to visit him the next night when the rest of the village had gone to sleep, before he disappeared into the dark hallway, his soft, careful footsteps fading as he descended the stairs. Sherlock felt like he couldn’t move. He was trembling and his skin prickled like the air before a lightning strike, a feeling he recalled quite clearly from the time he’d been standing a mere twenty feet away from a redwood that was struck during a storm. He felt alternately hot and cold as he touched his fingertips to his own arms, wondering how it had felt to John when he touched him in just the same spot. His shoulders still tingled as though they’d been burned by John’s palms.

Too tired to try to make sense of his chaotic feelings, he undressed clumsily and slipped into bed. His pillow smelled like John, and he didn’t mind at all. It was strangely nice. He buried his face in it and fell into a dream-rich sleep in which John was carrying him out of the ocean, except the ocean was filled with acorns instead of water, and the sky wasn’t the sky at all, but the inside of a colossal redwood tree, and when they reached the shore they found moss instead of sand; and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember what happened next when he woke up.


	14. Chapter 14

Time had become a fearsome, unreliable companion to John; it dragged on and on during the daylight hours as he cleared away the charred remains of his former home, dug a new foundation, chiseled stone and wheeled it up from the seaside quarry to the hillside where the new house would be built. There was wood to cut and mortar to mix, there were plans to be drawn and measurements to be made. On top of his construction duties, he’d been tasked with looking after his father, which meant cooking three meals a day, tidying his temporary tent, and making sure he didn’t wander too far on his own. John hadn’t spoken a word to him since the night of the fire, except once to usher him into a neighbor’s stone house when the dragons attacked again. Luckily there were no dragonfires and few wounds that night; the dragons had left almost as quickly as they’d come, several sheep clutched in their talons. The next day it was back to the normal drudgery of work.

Normally, John wouldn’t have minded the job; he liked working with his hands and creating useful things. But he couldn’t forget who he was building the new house for, and he also couldn’t forget that if he weren’t obligated to build the house in the first place, he would be spending his remaining days on Berk with Sherlock, and presumably the night fury. While he was interested in seeing the fabled creature, his thoughts were always preoccupied with Sherlock; the dragon was only an afterthought. They only saw each other at night, when the rest of the village slept, and they rarely talked for long, since John was always exhausted from his work. And so his anger simmered all day as he worked - anger at Mycroft, anger at his father, anger at gods he didn’t particularly believe in, anger at whatever struck his fancy - making the hours drag like a heavy ship tugged over sand.

But when he saw Sherlock, time did a funny thing. It seemed to know what he was feeling and, fed by his desire to make their short moments together last, sprang to full speed like a ship with taut sails under a strong, steady wind.

Mostly, John just listened when they met, and sometimes asked questions, because Sherlock was always bursting with things to tell him about the dragon (who he’d inexplicably named Toothless), and John didn’t think Sherlock would be much interested in hearing about how many blocks of stone he’d carted up the hill that afternoon, or how his father had thrown his bowl of soup at him in an unexpected fit of rage. He didn’t mind being the listener because he’d missed the sound of Sherlock’s voice so much, and his stories gave him plenty to think about while he worked the next day. He also liked watching Sherlock’s hands moving animatedly as he described how Toothless had finally taken a (non-threatening) step towards him one day, or leapt across the cave to catch a fish that Sherlock threw to him.

Sherlock very much wanted John to come and meet Toothless, but John was worried that they’d both get caught. Mycroft seemed resigned to letting Sherlock roam when and where he pleased without supervision - he couldn’t spare any warriors to tail him, especially not with preparations for the harvest voyage underway - but John was fairly certain he himself wasn’t meant to leave the village, and he suspected that the regular guards were tasked with keeping an eye on him at all times. This was why he’d convinced Sherlock to meet him just behind the half-built house each night - if he didn’t go far from his tent, he didn’t think anyone would interfere with their meetings. He longed to go back to Martha’s house and sleep in his wonderfully soft bed, content knowing Sherlock was just next door, waking up to the scent of freshly baked pies in the morning. In the brief time he’d been there, it had begun to feel like home in a way his parents’ house never had. But Mycroft had made it clear that he wasn’t to stay there anymore.

One night, John found himself waiting up unusually late for Sherlock to come visit him. He was beginning to feel all kinds of worried - had something gone wrong with Toothless? Had Sherlock grown tired of entertaining John every night? These two worries in particular clawed at him the most. He couldn’t decide which one was more likely, which was frustrating because if the former were true, then Sherlock might need his help. He had just decided to sneak out of the village to investigate when he heard a rustling in the tall, shadowy grass beyond the skeleton of the new house.

“Sherlock!” he whispered in relief as his friend emerged, looking like a shadow himself with his dark curls and his lightweight cloak of dark blue cloth. The nights were becoming chill and crisp as golden summer faded into autumn, and John felt himself shiver, but he wasn’t convinced it was from the cold. “Are you alright? What took you so long?”

“John, you won’t believe what we found!” he whispered; he seemed to be trembling with excitement. “When I got to the cave this afternoon, Toothless was gone. I couldn’t find any signs of him on the beach. I feared at first he might have somehow broken through the falls and flown away, but I knew that was impossible, so I went back into the cave, and I realized one of the walls had caved in, and behind it was another cave. So I made a torch and I followed it deep under the island, and suddenly it opened up into this huge space! All this time we’ve been living on top of a hollow mountain, and we had no idea!” His eyes were shining, reflecting the glowing coals of the dying campfire nearby. “It was filled with the most incredible things - moss growing like blankets over the stones, toadstools growing sideways up the walls and some of them were even glowing, and there was a stream running over pebbles on the floor… There were even blind white fish in the water. Toothless was dashing all over the place, I could tell he loved having so much space to stretch his legs and wings. He even glided a little, but he couldn’t gain any height without his tail. Oh, John, I wish you could see it. You’d love it there.”

It did sound wonderful. John ached to go there with Sherlock so much that his heart hurt. Even with his face in complete shadow, Sherlock noticed immediately that something was wrong. “What is it, John?” he asked, and his voice was so gentle that John felt tears welling up in his eyes. Without thinking, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist, burying his face in his cloak and breathing slow, deep breaths to keep from sobbing. Sherlock, hesitant at first, wrapped his own arms around John and held him, warm and careful. No one had ever held John while he cried before, and it was one of the best feelings he’d ever experienced in his life even as he couldn’t remember being more sad and angry at once before.

“I don’t want to leave,” he finally managed to choke out, and Sherlock held him tighter. “I just got you back, and now I have to leave all over again, and I… I don’t know how… Sherlock, I want you to come with me.” He heard Sherlock’s sharp intake of breath and rushed on, afraid of what his reaction might be. “I know it’s impossible, I know you have to stay with Toothless, and Mycroft would never let you leave anyway. But even before I found out about this tournament, I was going, I was going to ask you, I wanted…” he trailed off, feeling suddenly terrified. He hadn’t planned to say any of that, and a dozen what-ifs crowded into his mind, each worse than the other but all ending with Sherlock walking coldly away.

That wasn’t what happened at all.

“I’m sorry, I…” he started to say, feeling like something inside him was cracking dangerously and was perhaps about to shatter, but Sherlock interrupted him.

“Yes,” he said, his voice soft and warm, somewhere close to his ear.

“What?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, John, yes, I want to leave with you. I’ve wanted that for a long time now. I… I thought it would be obvious.” John let out a shaky laugh, hardly daring to believe the conversation they were having was real. “You’re right that I can’t come with you this time. But you won’t be gone for nearly as long as before, no more than two months. I… I can’t tell you what it is yet, but I’m working on an idea that should help us leave. I was going to ask you myself before you left, if you wanted to come with me when you returned.”

“You were?” John breathed, looking up at him, no longer hiding his face in Sherlock’s cloak, straining to see his friend’s expression in the dark.

“Of course. You must know by now that this island is too small for me, and I’ve seen the way you look out at the sea, like you miss all the adventures you had. And… to be quite honest... I can’t imagine a future without you in it.” He sounded endearingly embarrassed.

“Sherlock,” John whispered, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. The silence between them shifted, as it so often did, and suddenly the narrow space between them felt electric. He became very aware of the fact that their arms were still around each other, and that if he leaned up just a little…

They were both startled by a loud pop from the dying fire; a few coals had shifted and sent up a spray of sparks. Reluctantly, they leaned away from each other; even hours after midnight there was a chance of someone hearing them and coming to investigate.

“You’ve got to get some rest,” Sherlock murmured as he wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself. John wondered if he, too, was feeling the cold more sharply now that they were no longer touching. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long tonight.”

There were a lot of things that John could have said. He could have said, “It’s fine,” or “Don’t worry about it,” or even a teasing “Don’t do it again.” He could have said any number of things to return their conversation to their usual light bantering.

Instead he said, “You’re always worth waiting for, Sherlock,” and then turned and made his way back to his tent, forcing himself not to look back. It wasn’t until he was wrapped in blankets on top of his sleeping mat that he fully realized what had almost just happened. If he’d stayed standing there a heartbeat longer, he knew beyond doubt that he would have closed the distance between them and kissed him.


	15. Chapter 15

Sherlock missed John constantly, and he hadn’t even left Berk yet. Working with Toothless during the day distracted him enough that missing John was only a dull ache, but he couldn’t help thinking about how much he wished John could see everything the dragon did for himself. The day Sherlock reached up to touch Toothless’s face for the first time, his head turned and eyes closed, and felt the shy dragon’s nose finally settle against his palm, his elation was punctured by the thought that John ought to have been standing next to him with his own hand outstretched. When Toothless started looking forward to Sherlock’s visits, he wished John could hear the night fury’s friendly, welcoming rumble, like the purr of a giant cat. Sherlock had made a few large wicker balls for Toothless to play with (the dragon had quickly learned not to shoot them with his blue fire, which charred them to ash immediately). He could just imagine what it would be like to sit on his favorite cushiony, moss-covered stone and watch John throw the balls for Toothless to chase, a sheaf of parchment and a charcoal stick in his hand so that he could sketch the various movements of the dragon’s half serpentine, half feline body, and maybe John’s own figure too. Sometimes he entertained the fantasy of stealing John away in the night and hiding him in the secret cave, but he worried that Mycroft would go to any lengths to find them both if he did that, and then it wouldn’t be safe for any of them.

He told Toothless all about John. Although he couldn’t be certain if the dragon understood him, his eyes (he’d discovered the dragon was male early on) watched him attentively whenever he spoke, and he seemed almost sympathetic, creeping close and brushing Sherlock lightly with his wings or half-tail whenever his voice began to shake.

“He’s leaving in seven days,” Sherlock would say hollowly, and Toothless would nudge him gently from behind, warming him with hot air snuffed out of his nostrils.

“Five days,” Sherlock told him despairingly as he dumped a basket of fish at the dragon’s feet; Toothless gave his face a slobbery lick before diving into his breakfast

“Three days,” Sherlock almost whispered, fighting back a wave of nausea and a strange prickling in his eyes. Toothless head-butted him so hard he toppled backwards into the icy cold underground stream, causing him to laugh and splutter in spite of himself.

“One day,” Sherlock tried to say, and couldn’t. Toothless encircled him with his warm body and settled down with his bright green eyes fixed sadly on Sherlock’s face, rumbling in sympathy.

Sherlock didn’t stay with Toothless for very long on that last day. Sherlock and John’s midnight meetings had been taking up more and more time as the two of them planned for John’s return in whispers, and he felt a pang of guilt for keeping John from getting his much needed sleep. He wouldn’t get much of a chance to rest on the ship either, since he was one of the most experienced shiphands on Berk after his nine-year voyage. But he still planned to meet him one more time that night, since it was unlikely they’d be able to talk in private when The Night Fury sailed at dawn, even if he went down to the docks to see John off; it would be too crowded and chaotic to say everything he wanted to say, and to give him the gift he’d prepared.

Sherlock had been working nearly as hard on his gift as he had been working on a new tail for Toothless. While the tail was crucial to his escape plan, it could wait long enough for him to finish the gift before John’s departure. It had required striking up a deal with Philip - something he was loathe to do - so that he had access to the forge, and Philip’s supplies and expertise. He’d had to agree never to torment Philip again and to return all the tools he’d stolen in the past (as well as make a few new ones), and to clean up around the shop for an hour or so every day. In exchange, Philip taught Sherlock how to craft a knife of the finest steel, with a glossy black dragon scale embedded in the hilt. If Philip noticed anything uncommon about the scale, he didn’t mention it, and Sherlock certainly wasn’t going to tell him it had belonged to a night fury; but he was certain John would recognize it instantly. It was one of the scales he’d collected that first night, when he was hiding evidence that the dragon had traveled along the beach.

After collecting the cooled knife from Philip’s forge and tidying up around the place for the last time, he slipped it snugly into a redwood sheath, which he’d carved and polished himself, and tucked it safely in his pocket. He fought the urge to take it to John right away; he knew he was busy furnishing the newly completed house today, and would probably be elsewhere in the village anyway trading for woven rugs and new linens. Instead he went to Martha’s to look for a bite to eat. He was in luck; she was in the kitchen, stirring a steaming pot of vegetable soup that smelled mouthwateringly delicious.

“Oh, Sherlock, what a lovely surprise!” she exclaimed when he slipped in the back door as he usually did, but he hardly heard her.

John was sitting at the table with a bowl of soup, spoon suspended halfway to his mouth, reminding Sherlock of another time they’d been here together, eating pie the day she’d invited them to live in her house. Sherlock felt a strange flurry of panic. For the past month they’d been meeting furtively in the dark; how strange that that had become normal, and this - gazing at each other in broad daylight - sent a thrill of adrenaline crashing through him. He suddenly wondered how John was seeing him now, plainly in the light - did he suddenly seem dull and boring? Was his hair too unkempt? There were charcoal smears on his hands and arms, and probably on his clothes as well. He was so unprepared for this unexpected meeting that words failed him entirely, and all the while John just stared back at him, seemingly also at a loss for words.

Martha, however, would have none of it.

“Sherlock, dear, I’ve got to go over to Chatterjee’s garden for a few things. I expect I’ll be a while, could you be a love and stir the soup until the carrots are soft?” And she marched him over to the stove, thrust the ladle in his hand, and left them alone in the house with a cheerful farewell and a knowing wink.

Sherlock was still stunned and speechless. He couldn’t understand why he was suddenly unable to function, or why he couldn’t stop staring at John, who looked strikingly solid and real in the daylight.

“Sherlock,” John finally said with faint amusement as he stood, abandoning his soup, and walked over to the stove. “You know you do actually have to stir that to keep it from burning, right?”

He reached out and took the ladle from Sherlock’s trembling hand; the way his fingertips slid slowly, lingeringly over his palm in the process felt somehow deliberate.

“Um,” Sherlock finally managed, feeling slightly triumphant that he had managed to produce any sound at all. John was smiling at him, but there was a shadow of sadness and worry in his stormy blue eyes that reminded Sherlock that today was the last day before John left. “Hi,” he offered tentatively, not knowing what else to say.

“Hey,” John murmured back, watching him intently as he stirred the soup rhythmically. “You’ve, um, you’ve got something on your nose.”

Blushing furiously, Sherlock reached up to rub it off, but John beat him to it, resting his fingertips lightly on Sherlock’s cheek as he brushed the smear of soot from his nose with his thumb. He too seemed to be blushing.

“How’d you manage that, anyway?” John asked him, and he sounded a bit breathless - or had Sherlock just imagined it?

“I, um, I’ve been working, you know, on things, and I... I have something for you,” Sherlock stammered, answering his question in a roundabout way. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sheathed knife and handed it to John, who breathed in sharply when he saw what it was.

“Sherlock,” he said wonderingly, turning it over in his hands. “Where did you… how did you…” On one side was a detailed carving of a hollow redwood tree - their tree - and on the other he’d etched Toothless, anatomically correct (down to the missing tail flap) and gazing up with sharp, catlike eyes. Entwined in the tree roots was an embellished letter J; between the night fury’s feet scrolled an elaborate S, to remind John it was from him. He was very good at drawing; he’d been filling notebook after notebook with his sketches since before he could write, and carving designs on wood for the sheath turned out to be much the same as drawing with ink or charcoal.

The soup simmered forgotten for the moment as John slid the knife out of the sheath and gazed at its smooth, sharp edges. His eyes shone as his fingers brushed the dragon scale on the hilt.

“I knew you’d be needing a new one,” Sherlock explained anxiously, waiting for John to say something. “So I asked Philip to teach me how to make it.”

“You asked Philip?” John repeated, floored. “But… but you can’t stand him!”

“Well, it was worth it,” Sherlock said with a small shrug, and he meant it.

“It’s wonderful,” John breathed earnestly as he slipped it back into its sheath and fastened it reverently to his belt. “I can’t believe - I never expected - thank you, Sherlock, thank you.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful when you’re gone,” Sherlock said suddenly, desperately. It was a strange reversal of roles; John was usually the one making him promise to be careful, not the other way around.

“Of course,” John said softly.

And still Sherlock wanted to say more, to tell him that he had his own selfish reasons for wanting John to be careful and safe; that if something happened to John, Sherlock had already given him so much of himself, he didn’t know what might happen to him. All he knew was that he couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again, and there was always that chance, however slight, that when sailors stepped onto their ships they might never step off again.

“Promise me,” he said again, his voice low, “that you’ll come back.” He said it even though he knew John couldn’t promise any such thing, that it was up to fate in the end.

“Promise me,” John replied, “that you’ll wait for me.” It seemed to Sherlock that there was more than one meaning to his words.

“You’re always worth waiting for, John,” he whispered, echoing John’s own words from that memorable night as he looked unwaveringly into John’s deep ocean blue eyes.

John smiled brighter than the sun.

They suddenly seemed to remember the soup at the same time, and both peered down at it; it was simmering happily, and hadn’t burned on the bottom as John feared, but he commenced stirring it again anyway. The intensity of the moment between them had passed.

“Here,” John said, spooning out a piece of carrot, “let that cool and tell me if it’s ready.” Sherlock blew on it until it stopped steaming and took it carefully in his mouth in case it was still hot on the inside. He tried to ignore how intimate the moment was, with John standing so close to him, feeding him, gazing at him.

“Mmm,” he exclaimed, mashing the soft carrot in his mouth and tasting all of the delicious flavors of the soup that had soaked into it. He suddenly remembered how hungry he was. John laughed and turned off the stove, then filled a clean bowl with soup and handed it to Sherlock. “Thank you, John.”

They went and sat at the table together; it was wonderful to share this moment of domesticity while they were alone and unwatched, though Sherlock knew he would start feeling terribly sad and worried again if he let himself think about what was coming next. John told him about his finishing touches on the house, and Sherlock detected pride in his voice even though he was still clearly resentful of his job. He could easily picture a very different scene, where John was building the house for the two of them instead, with Sherlock eagerly helping and learning construction skills he’d never had a chance to learn before. But it was pointless to imagine such things; they’d never be allowed to share a house here on Berk. It just wasn’t done.

“I’ve got to get going,” John said finally, looking sad and resigned as he stood up and took their empty bowls and spoons to the washbasin in the corner. “I’ve still got a few things left to do this afternoon, and I have to pack.”

“And I’ve got to go check on Toothless,” Sherlock said gloomily. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy spending time with the dragon - on the contrary, he enjoyed it very much - it was just that he was reluctant to end their unexpected rendezvous. “Will I… can I still see you tonight?”

“Don’t be daft, Sherlock, of course I want you to come see me. I always want that.” He handed the bowls to Sherlock to dry; he obliged because it was John - if anyone else had asked him to do such a menial task, he would have scoffed, or fled.

Together, they made their way through the storeroom to get to the back door. Sherlock remembered the time they’d toppled over the bags of flour with a surprising fondness, and he longed for how uncomplicated everything had been at the time. He was seized with a strange desire to grab John and pull him down, to recreate that moment as closely as possible, but without the fear of Martha walking in; how would he react? What would happen next? But he didn’t. They stopped in the gloom before the doorway.

“Sherlock,” John said softly, turning to him, “thank you.” He was touching the new knife at his waist, running his fingers over the grooves of the carvings. He looked like he still couldn’t quite believe it was real.

“Just returning the favor,” Sherlock murmured with a smile. Their eyes met and Sherlock felt that strange electric jolt he’d been feeling lately every time they touched or stood too close. He wanted to do something; he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but the wanting was very strong. Had John’s eyes just flickered down to his mouth? His lips parted at the thought, and he gasped as something finally started to make sense.

But before he could work through it, the door of a nearby house slammed shut, and the two of them automatically stepped apart, though there was a definite reluctance about it.

“Right,” said John, his voice strangely hoarse, “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you tonight,” Sherlock echoed, and then John was opening the door, almost blinding him with afternoon sunlight; the door closed, and he was gone.

 

Back in the cave, Sherlock found Toothless building a nest out of moss on the ground. The sleek black dragon looked up and let out a trill of happiness, some moss falling out of his mouth, and dashed over when he saw that Sherlock had brought him more fish.

“He’s leaving tomorrow,” Sherlock told Toothless, perching on a mossy boulder as the night fury gulped fish directly out of the basket. “He’s leaving tomorrow, and I think… I think he wanted to kiss me.” Toothless looked up at him in surprise, the basket hanging comically off of his nose, but Sherlock hardly noticed. “He’s leaving tomorrow and I think I’m in love with him.” The basket fell to the ground, and Toothless warbled in sympathy, watching as the human he had come to love and trust wrapped his arms around his knees and cried.

Sherlock didn’t notice until hours later that the nest Toothless had been building was far too small for a dragon.


	16. Chapter 16

John could barely focus on his work all afternoon as he added the finishing touches to the house. His father was sleeping in a rocking chair by the front door in the sun, completely unaware of what was going on. It was all too easy to ignore him, though John supposed he’d have to lead him inside and show him around that night before he left. He barely thought about any of that, though, as he tucked new linens around the freshly stuffed straw mattress and hung plain curtains in all of the windows. The house was clean, simple, and functional; he had no interest in adding unnecessary decorations. The straightforward nature of his work allowed his mind to replay his meeting with Sherlock from earlier that afternoon, again and again and again. The way he’d stared at John like he was the only thing in the world; his pleased, shy smile when he’d seen John admiring the knife; the desperation in his voice when he’d begged him to be careful, to come back to him. The way they’d stood in front of the door, so close, so close…

Pausing in his work, John took a moment to lean on the smoothly sanded stone of the windowsill of the bedroom; he’d planned it so that it faced the ocean, giving him a beautiful view of the sapphire blue water stretching out to meet the deep cerulean blue of the early autumn sky. Instead of taking in the scenery, he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, burying his face behind the mask of his calloused hands.

Finally, he let himself imagine the way that moment had almost unfolded. How he had almost taken another step, had almost lifted his hands to frame Sherlock’s gorgeous face, had almost traced his elegant cheekbones and dragged his thumb over his full lips, had almost leaned in to meet them with his own. He didn’t know how Sherlock would have reacted. A part of him was convinced that Sherlock felt the same way, that he would have responded eagerly, swift and sure; the other half of him was certain that Sherlock would be confused or even horrified. He knew he had to be more careful, had to wait until he was absolutely sure of Sherlock’s feelings. No matter what, he couldn’t lose him as a friend. If he had to learn to control his feelings for the rest of his life, then so be it. There was desire, he knew, and there was love; and he suspected it was quite common to have one without the other. He didn’t doubt that Sherlock loved him, in some way. But how rare and beautiful it would be, he couldn’t help thinking, if the two of them could share both.

His thoughts were so distracting that he almost didn’t notice the sound of approaching footsteps, and he jumped in surprise when he did, nearly hitting his head on the window frame. It was Captain Lestrade, tramping up the path with an air of rushed purpose.

“Hello, John,” Lestrade called up, still friendly even in the midst of his urgency. “Have a moment?”

“Of course,” John called down, hurrying through the bedroom and living space to the front door. “Do you have news?”

“Mycroft sent me to make sure you’re all ready to leave,” Lestrade explained; he sounded a bit miffed, as though he personally thought Mycroft was silly for worrying about such a thing, and if he was worried, he should have found someone else to check up on him or done it himself, because he was very busy at the moment, thank you very much.

“I just have to throw a few things in my bag,” John assured him. “I don’t have all that much, anyway. I’ll be ready at dawn.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it,” Lestrade said with a small frown.

“I’m not,” John responded, deciding it was best to be honest. “I didn’t exactly ask to be shipped off to compete in a tournament I’m not supposed to win.”

“It can’t be all that bad, though,” Lestrade said reasonably. “A bit of fame and glory, a bit of gold, a chance to get away from Berk…” he thought Lestrade sounded a little wistful when he said that last bit.

“Yeah, well, I’m not interested in that kind of thing,” John told him, leaning tiredly in the doorframe and looking out to the sea. He ignored the snuffling of his sleeping father nearby.

“Oh? What are you interested in, then?” Lestrade asked curiously.

_ Sherlock _ , thought John.

“Adventure,” he said instead. “On my own terms,” he added, seeing Lestrade’s look of confusion. “I’ve no interest in showing off my skills to please royalty. I’d rather apply them to something useful.”

Lestrade shrugged. “Fair enough, I suppose,” he said with a huffy sigh. “Well, I’ve got to get back down to the docks. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, then,” and he was off with a cheery (though tired) wave.

 

 

 

There was a celebration that night; the villagers had prepared a magnificent send off feast, with music and dancing and drink (John was immensely grateful that his father was sound asleep in his new bed). John ate little and drank nothing. He sat off to the side and watched as nearly everyone on the whole island indulged in the merriment. Molly, Archie, and Sally were dancing together next to one of the great bonfires in the town square, a few other children laughing and twirling along with them. John hadn’t really gotten to known any of the children who’d grown up on Berk while he was away. He tried to imagine his younger self laughing and dancing with them, but all he could think of was how at that age he and Sherlock would steal food and climb up the mountain to look for dragons and watch the stars, far away from the others.

As if attuned to the very thought of his brother’s name, Mycroft appeared at his shoulder. He always made a point of making an appearance at events like this, though his loftiness indicated he rather had better things to do.

“I see you’re not partaking in the festivities,” he remarked, looking out over the celebrating crowd with an unreadable gaze.

“Yeah, I don’t feel much like celebrating,” John replied curtly. Mycroft raised his eyebrows.

“Is that so,” he said, but it wasn’t a question. “I would ask you about the state of my little brother, who can never be bothered to make an appearance at times like these, but you’ve made it quite clear that you’re not willing to share information on that front. You should know, however, that I’m very aware of your… midnight meetings.” There was something in his quiet tone that made John feel very cold inside.

“I assumed as much,” he responded, because he had in fact suspected something of the sort since the night they’d caught Toothless, though he didn’t like to think of it.

“You may want to inform Sherlock when you see him tonight that it will be the last time you’ll be able to do so,” Mycroft continued with no change of tone. “Things will be very different when you return to Berk in two months.”

“What are you talking about?” John demanded in a low voice, suddenly angry and scared.

“You’ll find out in due course,” Mycroft assured him gravely. “I suggest you go and say your goodbyes now. You’ll want to get a good night’s sleep before your departure, I’m sure.”

“What the hell are you playing at, Mycroft?” he whispered furiously. “You can’t keep us separated forever.”

“I won’t be needing too,” Mycroft replied, but he somehow made it sound sinister rather than reassuring. “My mind is made up, John, there’s no use arguing with me. Go now while I’m still in the mood to permit it. I’m sure he’s waiting for you.”

Simmering with rage, John pushed past him and stalked away from the celebration. His heart hadn’t been in it anyway. It seemed far too early for Sherlock to have come to meet him, but perhaps waiting in the chill autumn air would calm him down. Had Mycroft figured it out? He wondered, his heart pounding. Had he been watching this whole time? Had he seen their long glances, their lingering touches? Had he heard their whispered words? Was he just trying to protect his brother, or was there something more ominous going on? His meddling was infuriating.

Slowly, as he walked, he began to calm down. Mycroft seemed to think things would be different when he returned, but nothing would change how he felt about Sherlock, and no matter what it took he was determined that the two of them would escape Berk together someday, somehow. His certainty of this fact cleared his mind and cooled his fury to a more controlled anger. He turned and looked back at the flickering red firelight in the center of the town square and the black and silver gleam of the ocean below, and all at once the reality of his morning departure hit him with the force of a battering ram. He really did need to pack, he realized numbly; he couldn’t put it off anymore. Suddenly he remembered that he’d left his spare pair of boots in his old bedroom at Martha’s. Changing course, he strode down the path until he came to the back door of her house and let himself into the storage room. He longed to stand there in the dark and close his eyes, remembering that afternoon, but he didn’t have the time. Treading silently out of habit even though he knew Martha was with everyone else - he’d seen her dancing around the bonfires with Chatterjee - he slipped up the stairs and almost ran right into Sherlock.

“Sherlock?”

“John?”

“What are you... ”

Sherlock kissed him.

His lips were unbelievably sweet and soft; his nose was warm and rubbed against his own, and his curly hair brushed delicately across John’s forehead. Sherlock had slipped one arm around John’s waist and let his other hand slide up into his hair, which he teased gently with his fingers.

Ever since he’d realized he wanted to kiss Sherlock, John had always been doing the kissing in his mind. He’d never once imagined Sherlock might be the one to push him gently against the wall and kiss his breath away. John felt Sherlock leaning into him and melted, sighing as all of his worries slid off of him.

“Sherlock,” he breathed into his lips, but it came out more like a moan, and Sherlock shivered. John trailed his hands lightly up Sherlock’s arms, and he positively trembled at John’s touch. He traced his shoulders and slender neck with his fingertips, up his jawline and across his beautiful cheekbones. Sherlock gave a small gasp and John kissed him more deeply; he was finally beginning to realize what was happening - Sherlock was  _ kissing him _ \- and he was becoming fully aware of just how many ways he wanted to hold him and touch him and kiss him back.

And suddenly he was desperate because there wasn’t enough time to discover them all, because this was their last night, because of all of the chances he’d missed to have  _ this _ , the two of them standing with no space between them, sharing the same breath and twining their fingers together, murmuring each other’s names like a prayer.

“I want,” John gasped out, not knowing what he was going to say next.

“I know,” Sherlock breathed shakily in his ear.

“I need,” he tried again, still searching for words.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, kissing his neck and making John cry out softly.

“I love you,” he spilled out, and Sherlock took a sharp breath and gazed at him with shining eyes. “I love you,” he whispered again, because now that he’d said it once he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to stop.

“John,” Sherlock said wonderingly, touching his cheek with a feather-light hand.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They stared at each other, faces flushed and lips swollen, eyes dark and hearts pounding.

“Am I dreaming?” John finally whispered.

“I hope not,” Sherlock whispered back, smiling shyly.

“How did you know I’d come here?” he asked, suddenly remembering how it had all begun.

“I didn’t. I was looking for a new shirt. I accidentally set fire to this one,” he added sheepishly, and John suddenly noticed that one of the sleeves had been singed off.

“Are you okay?” he asked, alarmed.

“Yes, I wasn’t wearing it when it happened. I was swimming in the stream in the cave. I accidentally threw it into the fire when I took it off.” He looked embarrassed, and John realized with a jolt that he must have been naked. The thought sent shivers up his spine.

“Well, we’d better get you a new one,” John reasoned, slipping his hand into Sherlock’s and leading him into his room. He sat on the bed while Sherlock looked through his clothes, which were strewn messily around the room.

“What were you doing here?” Sherlock asked as he picked out a clean shirt and shook it out a little.

“Looking for my spare boots,” John said, though rather absently, for he was very absorbed in watching Sherlock’s slender form moving about the room. “I was going to wait for you afterwards.”

“I’m glad you came here first,” Sherlock said softly, coming to stand in front of him; he seemed to have forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

“So am I. Come here,” John murmured, taking the clean shirt and tossing it on the bed. He reached out and tugged gently on Sherlock’s hips, causing him to take a stumbling step forward so that he was close enough for John to lean in and start unbuttoning his charred shirt. Sherlock stood very still and watched him with huge eyes. He seemed to be holding his breath. John realized his own hands were shaking slightly. Each sliver of pale skin that he revealed as he worked his way up made him feel even more breathless and awed. It seemed impossible that this was happening, yet he saw everything in such sharp detail and heard with utter clarity the ragged gasp he elicited when he slid his palms up the smooth planes of Sherlock’s chest, over his shoulders and down his arms as he tugged the ruined shirt off of him.

There was enough moonlight coming through the window for John to see him clearly, so he leaned back and drank in the sight of Sherlock standing in the silvery light, looking ethereal and yet impossibly real.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” John whispered fiercely, and even in the pale moonlight he could see that Sherlock was blushing furiously. But he didn’t let his shyness stop him from taking another step forward so that his body was flush with John’s chest. He was careful and questioning as he fingered the hem of John’s own shirt, asking John’s permission with his huge, dark eyes as his fingers brushed the skin at his waist; he was almost hesitant as he tugged at the buttons, so tentative as he pushed the fabric aside, achingly slow as he leaned to kiss John’s chest.

John wasn’t sure how it happened - if Sherlock had pushed him down, or if he had pulled Sherlock on top of him, or perhaps both - but one way or another, moments later they were tangled shirtless on the bed, kissing every inch of bare skin they could reach. The feeling of their skin touching was exquisite, and John wished it would never end.

Eventually John realized it was a bit cold to keep on as they were; he was kissing Sherlock’s fingertips, and they felt like ice.

“You’re freezing,” he breathed, enveloping Sherlock’s hands in his own and rubbing his nose on his cheek.

“A bit,” Sherlock admitted; John laughed.

“Come here.” John pulled back the quilt and linens and they kicked off their shoes and snuggled underneath, quickly warming again. They simply held each other now; even though Sherlock was taller, he had curled around John and rested his head on his chest, his curls tickling John’s nose. John buried his face in the silky mess of dark hair and inhaled contentedly; it smelled familiar and comforting, like the redwood forest in the summer.

They fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, tangled so closely they could hardly be told apart.

 

 

 

Martha woke them in the gray light of predawn.

“Oh don’t worry,” she said when she saw their horrified faces, “I’m not going to tell anyone. I can’t believe it took you this long to figure it out, to be honest.” She smiled warmly as Sherlock blushed scarlet and buried his face under the linens. “John, you’ve got to get ready; it’s almost dawn. I’ve got breakfast waiting for the both of you downstairs.” She left them to wake up properly, closing the door (which they had foolishly left open) behind her as she went.

“Oh gods,” John breathed out as he sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “That could have, erm, ended badly.” Sherlock giggled helplessly from under the blankets, his breath tickling John’s side and making him laugh in return. But the laughter died in his throat when he remembered he was leaving in mere hours, and wouldn’t see Sherlock again for two months.

Sherlock seemed to know what he was thinking. He climbed up onto John’s lap, straddling him, and gazed intensely into his eyes for a long moment before taking his face in his hands and kissing him.

“It’s going to be alright,” he murmured into John’s parted lips. “ _ We’re _ going to be alright. You’ll see.”

“I’ve got to tell you something,” John suddenly remembered, his heart growing heavy “something Mycroft said to me last night. He told me he knows we’ve been meeting every night, and that it’s going to stop when I come back, but I don’t know how he can know that for sure. He sounded serious.” John closed his eyes and felt his anger stirring like a fire stoked by the wind. “Dangerous.”

“We can’t worry about him,” Sherlock said gently, running his hands along John’s bare chest. “There’s nothing he can do to change the way I feel about you. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to be with you. Whatever tricks he might have up his sleeve, we’ll have better ones up ours. All you have to do is come back to me in one piece.” He kissed the scar on John’s left shoulder then, reverently, and John was glad he was sitting down because he was fairly certain his knees would have buckled under him if he’d been standing.

“I could pretend to be ill and not go at all,” John said wistfully.

“Mycroft would see through it in an instant,” Sherlock told him, but he was smiling at him fondly. “Besides, he’d probably force you to go even if you  _ were _ sick.”

“I know,” John sighed, “but gods, I don’t want to leave.”

“I know.”

After another lingering kiss, Sherlock slid off him and onto the floor, dressing quickly in the clean shirt they’d abandoned the night before. John followed suit and went into his room to grab his extra boots, wondering at the fact that they were the reason he had met Sherlock there in the first place.

Martha seemed downright smug when they came down the stairs, spooning steaming porridge into a bowl for each of them and handing them freshly baked biscuits. John thanked her earnestly and asked her why she was up so early.

“Well, I noticed you were in right away when I came back last night,” she told them, ladling out some porridge for herself. “The door wide open, clothes all over the floor, it was clear you hadn’t planned a thing, and I knew you’d need me to get you up in the morning so I just didn’t go to sleep.” They stared at her in amazement as she sat cheerfully at the table with them. “Oh, I only got back an hour ago,” she said mischievously, and they quickly looked back at their bowls when they realized what she was insinuating. “Seemed pointless to go to bed only to get right back up again. It’s been years since I stayed up all night,” she said dreamily.

“Well, erm,” John said, clearing his throat, “thanks for, you know…”

“Of course,” she said fondly. “Now you take care of yourself while you’re gone, young man. You get through with that tournament, and then you come right back here. Sherlock doesn’t need his heart broken for another nine years.” Sherlock looked mortified; John blushed and thought his heart might be melting.

After a tight goodbye hug from Martha that made his eyes water (everyone pretended not to notice), they headed for the back door one last time. This time John didn’t hesitate, even though he suspected Martha might be peering after them; he turned to Sherlock and kissed him fiercely, giving his full lower lip a gentle bite. Sherlock gave a quiet whimper and seemed to sink down into John’s arms as a result.

“I love you, John,” he whispered, and John couldn’t ever remember him sounding so serious.

“I love you too,” he whispered back, and then they separated and stepped out into the fading darkness.


	17. Chapter 17

The docks were packed full; it seemed the entire village had turned out to see the harvest traders off, though many were holding their heads looking pale and ill from drinking too much the night before, or were merely exhausted from hours of dancing. No one paid Sherlock any mind as he squeezed his way to the edge of the crowd. His stomach felt like it was full of heavy stones, and his eyes stung even though he hadn’t cried (not yet, anyway). They’d said their final goodbyes outside John’s father’s new house, where there wouldn’t be any prying eyes. It felt incredibly painful to stand on the wooden planks now, next to the regal form of  _ The Night Fury _ dipping and creaking in the waves, knowing he was about to watch John climb aboard and sail away without a final chance to kiss him, or touch him, or even murmur in his ear. Plenty of other villagers were exchanging affectionate or emotional farewells. He saw Molly tearfully embracing Lestrade, her father, while her mother watched stiffly from behind. Young couples kissed passionately, heedless of those surrounding them; Sherlock felt a stab of jealousy - if only he were allowed to kiss John in front of everyone… He felt a thrill as he imagined their shocked faces, but he knew he could never be so careless as to let anyone see the true depth of their affection. Thinking this did not improve his mood.

He was scanning the crowd for Mycroft, wanting to make sure he put as much distance between himself and his brother as possible, when John appeared, bag slung over his shoulder, looking slightly harried and embarrassed at being late. Sherlock’s stomach flipped. It was such a relief to finally acknowledge to himself just how devastatingly handsome John was.  _ I’m here _ , he thought as intensely as he could, needing John to look at him one last time.  _ I’m here _ .

It was probably only by chance that John looked his way at that moment, but it felt like a promise from fate when their gaze locked in the midst of the chaos.  _ I love you. I miss you. Come back _ . He thought John seemed to understand. Then Captain Lestrade was ushering him away, leading him and the others onto the ship, and Sherlock lost sight of him.

It wasn’t until  _ The Night Fury _ began to pull away from the dock that Sherlock saw John again. He had appeared at the railing and was looking right at him; the cheers and farewell cries around him had faded to a thudding silence, and Sherlock stood as though entranced, watching John’s figure until he couldn’t distinguish his shape from the blur that the ship had become. He blinked and his vision shimmered; he hadn’t realized that tears were spilling from his eyes.

He also hadn’t realized that everyone else on the docks had left.

Everyone, that is, except for Mycroft.

It was hard to believe he’d once stood on this very spot just over nine years ago holding his brother’s hand and watching the same ship sail away with John and his parents on board. It felt like lifetimes ago.

“What do you want, Mycroft?” he rasped out, refusing to look away from the horizon.

“We need to talk, Sherlock,” he said, sounding grave.

“Fine. Talk.”

“I made a mistake, letting you run wild on the island as you grew up. Sentiment, I suppose, got the better of me; I didn’t have the heart to discipline you the way I was sure our parents would have, were they still alive.” Sherlock flinched; he’d successfully avoided thinking about his parents’ death for a long time, and didn’t like that Mycroft was bringing it up now, when he felt so raw from John’s departure. “But it’s time for you to grow up. You’re the chief’s brother, after all; if anything were to happen to me, you would be expected to lead.”

“You know I’d be rubbish at it,” Sherlock snapped, still not looking at him. The truth was, he  _ hadn’t _ really thought about it at all.

“Be that as it may, it is a custom that I suspect the others would not be willing to overlook. Knowing your leadership skills are as abysmal as they are, I’ve tried to come up with a different solution.” He paused as though expecting Sherlock to understand what he meant, which he didn’t. “You know Irene, I believe?”

Sherlock blinked, startled. He did vaguely remember her from when he was younger; she’d teased him for spending so much time reading instead of learning how to fight dragons. “What’s she got to do with anything?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’ve spoken with her parents, and we’ve agreed to arrange your marriage. Gods be willing, the two of you ought to be able to raise a child in time to succeed me, saving you the trouble of having to do it yourself.”

Sherlock almost fell off the dock, stunned.

“You  _ what? _ ” he spluttered, enraged.

“You’ll be married in three days’ time.”

“No, no, you can’t do this, how could you do this, I can’t, I  _ can’t _ \- ”

“And why not?” Mycroft watched him with sharp eyes.

“Because - because…”

“Because of John?” Mycroft prompted him softly. Sherlock was crying in earnest now; he couldn’t help it, though he hated himself for appearing so weak. “And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do about that? Do you imagine the village would cheer for you if John stood in Irene’s place at your wedding? Do you think being with him can answer the question of who will lead Berk in my stead? I’m sorry, Sherlock, but the future of our village is at stake, and if securing that future means breaking your heart, then so be it. I wish the situation were different, but hearts can be mended, after all. It’s much harder to mend a broken village.” He was trying, in his own odd way, to be kind, Sherlock knew, but it was just making everything worse.

“I c-can’t do it,” he sobbed. “I can’t, Mycroft. And you can’t make me - ”

“But can’t I?” Mycroft said, almost sadly. “I know you’re keeping another secret from me, Sherlock, and if you don’t comply with my order, I  _ will _ find out what it is. You know I would have found out already if I’d seen fit. I was trying to give you some privacy, but I’m afraid I can’t promise not to meddle if you disobey me.”

Sherlock grew cold with fear. If Mycroft found out about Toothless, then it would  _ really _ be over; Toothless’s life would be in danger, and he’d have no way to escape the island when John returned. And he knew Mycroft was right - there was nothing he could do to stop his brother from discovering the hidden cave, and the night fury it concealed, if he set his mind to it.

He buried his face in his hands and took a deep, ragged breath. He knew he didn’t have any choice.  _ I’m sorry, John _ , he thought fiercely,  _ I have to do this for you, love. For us _ .

“I’ll do it,” he choked out, forcing himself to stare up into Mycroft’s weary gray eyes. “I’ll do it, but I’ll hate you for every  _ second _ of it, and there is  _ nothing _ you can ever do to keep me from loving John. Nothing.”

“If that’s the way it has to be,” Mycroft conceded, and he nodded jerkily. Then Sherlock pushed past him and strode determinedly up to the island; he only looked back once, to find Mycroft unmoving, staring out over the ocean and looking strangely small and vulnerable.

Without knowing why, he ran straight for Martha’s. He didn’t care when people paused in their morning tasks and stared at his tear-streaked face and shaking hands. Even though he’d lived on Berk his entire life, he’d never been interested in getting to know any of the other villagers. When he was younger he’d had his parents, and John; then, Mycroft had been almost a friend. But before long there was no one; John and his parents had sailed away, and Mycroft had taken on the burdens of leadership, leaving Sherlock to escape to solitude. Now, he felt more alone than ever. Martha was the only person on the island (aside from Toothless) who he could confide in.

She was baking bread when he stumbled into her house, and she abandoned it immediately when she saw what state he was in.

“Oh, Sherlock,” she said sadly, gathering him into her arms and letting him cry; she held him for what could have been minutes or hours, he didn’t know, until he felt drained and strangely calm. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Saying it out loud turned out to be incredibly painful.

“Mycroft,” he started hoarsely, “he… He told me I have to… get married.”

“Married?” Martha echoed, confused. “To who?”

“Irene,” he said in a shaky voice. “Her parents agreed. It’s happening in three days.”

“Didn’t you say no?”

“Of course I did!” The tears threaten to spill out once more, so he hides his face in his hands. “Of course I said no. But then he… he…” Sherlock stopped, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t tell Martha about Toothless… could he? She’d handled finding him and John in bed together quite gracefully, but this was different. Would it be too much? “He knows I have a secret,” he continued carefully, “that I can’t let anyone else find out about. And he threatened to uncover it if I said no.”

“Oh, Sherlock.” She placed her hand comfortingly on his arm. She probably thought the secret was his and John’s relationship. “That heartless bastard. He ought to be ashamed of himself, forcing you into something like this. There’s got to be a way out of it.”

“I don’t think there is,” Sherlock said miserably. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t get  _ married _ . I can’t - but if I do, what will John think, when he comes back? What if he thinks…” his voice broke here, as his deepest worry crept out, “what if he thinks I didn’t love him after all?”

“Honestly, I’d say that’s the least of your worries,” Martha assured him firmly. “That boy would do anything for you, and he knows you feel the same. He’s not going to let a silly little thing like marriage get in the way of what you have.”

He was surprised that she seemed so certain. Her eyes took on a faraway gleam, as though she weren’t looking at the kitchen anymore, but somewhere beyond it. “I had a love like yours once, a long, long time ago. Her name was Margaret. Growing up, we were inseparable, just like the two of you. But we didn’t realize how we truly felt until after I was already married. Rachel and Thomas were already two years old. There was no way for us to be together unless I left Berk, and I couldn’t leave my children. Margaret couldn’t stand the fact that we couldn’t be together, so she left. I never heard from her again.” She sounded deeply sad, but also calm and accepting; she’d had to let go in order to survive, and eventually, thrive. “When Frank died, I always thought she might show up one day and take me away. But she never did.”

Sherlock didn’t know what to say. Not only was her story terribly heartbreaking, it also wasn’t particularly comforting considering his present situation.

“You and John,” she continued suddenly, her eyes refocusing on the present, “are meant to be together. Everything will come together for you, I can feel it. And I will do everything I can to help you. First of all, I think you need to have a talk with Irene.”

Sherlock was mortified at the thought.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with her!”

“She might surprise you,” Martha said thoughtfully. “It’s entirely possible she’s as opposed to this marriage as you are, you know. That often happens with arranged marriages. She doesn’t know a thing about you, after all. Talk to her, and find out what she wants. You know, being married could be an excellent cover for you. No one will pay any attention if they think you’ve settled down. But if you can get Irene on your side, you can work on that escape plan of yours.”

Sherlock gaped at her. How did she know about that?

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” she said with fond exasperation. “It’s obvious John wants to leave Berk, and it’s equally obvious you’d follow him anywhere. I won’t ask what you’re planning, but I will say that if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, you can ask me. I’m not going to go spilling your secrets to anyone.”

“Thank you, Martha,” he said quietly, and she beamed at him. “Can I just ask - one more thing… Are you sure,” he began hesitantly, “that John won’t think that I’ve, er, been unfaithful to him?” He could feel his ears burning, but he’d had to ask. He couldn’t bear the thought of John thinking he’d somehow been disloyal. Even though they hadn’t exchanged any kind of spoken vows, each kiss they’d shared the night before had felt like a promise, and Sherlock never wanted John to doubt that his heart - and the rest of him - belonged to John, and John alone.

“Of course he won’t think that,” she assured him, trying to hide her amusement. “He knows what your brother is like. He’ll understand why you had to do it. Now,” she said briskly, “I think you’d better go talk to Irene.”

 

 

 

He found her in the training ring with a few other girls her age. They were dressed in battle gear, practicing a complex series of combat sequences that made him dizzy to watch, and he admitted to himself that he was quite intimidated. He approached stubbornly all the same.  _ For you, John _ , he thought fiercely.

One of the other girls noticed him first. She was tall and slender and had wavy red hair and sharp brown eyes. She stared at him with blatant dislike. He wondered guiltily what he must have done when they were younger to give her reason to hate him. He’d probably put green moss dye in her shoes or something of the sort.

“Irene,” she said grimly, “you have a visitor.”

Irene turned to meet him gracefully, her eyebrows raising when she recognized him. She had long black hair knotted on top of her head and a strikingly angular face. He made a mental note that he was terrified of her.

“Well, my betrothed shows his face at last,” she purred silkily. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said curtly. One of the other girls snickered. “ _ Alone _ .” They were all laughing now, except for the girl with red hair, who looked ready to stab him with her wooden practice sword.

“Alright,” Irene agreed, looking amused but curious. “Go on, then,” she added to the others, who all slunk reluctantly off the field, still giggling. The redhead, however, hadn’t moved. “You too, Kate,” she said, and something flashed between the two that he didn’t understand. Kate finally nodded and strode away. Irene turned to him, waiting.

“I need to know how you feel about our marriage,” he said promptly, deciding it was best to be businesslike.

“Not much of a romantic, are you?” she deflected.  _ Not for you _ , he thought cooly, but said nothing. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by this. There was something smug about her that unnerved him; it was as though it didn’t matter to her one way or the other that they were to be married in three days, because she knew she would get what she wanted all the same.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Sherlock felt like he was being measured, tested. Finally, she spoke.

“I feel fine about it. Why?”

Sherlock gritted his teeth. This was turning out to be harder than he’d thought.

“Because I don’t,” he told her, feeling he may as well be honest. “I have absolutely no feelings for you, I will  _ never _ have feelings for you, and I have  _ no _ interest in having children. If we are married, I will not be sleeping in your bed, spending time in your house, or doing anything else generally expected of married couples.” He took a deep breath. “If this is going to be a problem, I suggest we try and work it out now.”

“Well, aren’t you interesting,” she said, watching him closely. “It almost sounds like you’re trying to say that you’re already… taken.” He stared back at her evenly, saying nothing. “I think,” she said slowly, “this could work out quite well for the both of us.” He blinked. That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. “You see, I’m also taken, but think of all the attention I’d draw to myself if I went on for years without marrying. People might start to wonder.” For a second, he felt nothing but confusion. And then it hit him - the look she’d shared with Kate, Kate’s angry stare - she hadn’t just been angry, she’d been jealous!

“I see,” he said slowly, thinking hard. “A marriage for appearance’s sake, and nothing more?”

“Exactly,” she said with a catlike smile. “So who is it, then, who’s stolen your heart?” He swallowed uncomfortably; was it really necessary for her to know? He felt like a small animal locked in the gaze of a predator. “No need to be shy with me, we’re to be married after all,” she teased. His mouth felt dry. Only two people on the entire secret knew his secret - Mycroft and Martha (well, and Toothless, but he didn’t count because he couldn’t exactly tell anyone) - and the more people who knew, the greater the danger would be of that secret slipping out. But if he didn’t tell her, she might not be willing to help him if he needed it later.

In the end, he didn’t have to say a word.

“It’s that John fellow, isn’t it?” she breathed suddenly, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, I should have guessed ages ago, the two of you are never apart. Ah, and what a handsome young man he is,” Irene teased him.

“Oh shut up,” he snapped, but something strange was happening; the heavy weight in his heart was lifting, just the tiniest bit, because he’d found another person to talk to who understood exactly what he was feeling. He almost smiled.

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. And I’m certain mine will remain safe with you.” She fingered a dagger that hung at her waist, and he gulped when he realized it wasn’t just another a wooden practice blade. After watching her practice before, he didn’t doubt that she could use it quite effectively. She laughed. “I think,” she said thoughtfully, “it might be nice if we… got to know each other a bit, for the sake of our performance.” He wondered if everything she said always sounded so suggestive and scandalous, but he thought she might actually be making a genuine offer of friendship, so he nodded. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and let us girls teach you how to fight? I don’t believe you were ever much one for the training ring, but it’s never too late to pick up a few tricks.”

Her suggestion didn’t sound half-bad, so he nodded again. Irene and her friends may have been more intimidating than a fleet of dragons, but it would be nice to learn some fighting skills; at the very least, he might be able to impress John later. The thought gave him a small thrill.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he decided. “And, er… thank you.” He said it grudgingly, yet genuinely.

“Anytime, my beloved,” she called with a rather indecent wink as he left the training ring.

 

 

 

Hours later, Sherlock was bathing Toothless with a scrub brush and herb-scented soap in the underground stream (Toothless, who had rolled in his own dung, chirped happily as the soapy water steamed off his warm body). Thinking over the bizarre events of the day, Sherlock had a very strange and sudden thought.

Mycroft, with his sharp eyes and meddlesome nature, knew everything that happened on the island. And Mycroft had revealed that he knew about Sherlock and John. Was it possible, then, that he knew about Irene and Kate as well? Was it possible that he, in his own convoluted way, had been trying to  _ help _ Sherlock by arranging their marriage? Had he, too, shared Irene’s vision of a marriage merely for the sake of appearances? Sherlock didn’t know if that would make him furious or grateful or both, so he put the thought out of his mind.

 

 

 

The following afternoon, Sherlock was beginning to think that perhaps joining the girls in the training ring hadn’t been the best idea. He was sweating and bruised and sore all over, and he didn’t think his skills had improved at all. Only his face remained unmarked, thanks to Irene, who didn’t want him black and blue for their wedding. “Just look at those beautiful cheekbones,” she’d crooned. “We wouldn’t to ruin that gorgeous face.” She may not have been interested in Sherlock as a husband, but she was certainly taken with the idea of putting on a spectacular show for their wedding.

At least Kate had warmed to him slightly; it seemed that Irene had informed her that she had nothing to be jealous about after all, but she still seemed a bit resentful that he had the privilege of marrying her, and she didn’t. He couldn’t blame her.

“Kate,” Sherlock asked as they sat on the wooden bench, taking a break after a few hours of sparring, “can I ask you something?”

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him expectantly. Out in the training ring Irene and her younger sister Janine had paired off against Anthea, a quiet, watchful girl with long brown hair, and Sarah, who proved remarkably fierce for a middle-aged seamstress.

“When you found out about Irene’s marriage,” he said, tactfully wording it as though he weren’t the other half of that marriage, “were you, um, angry with her?”

She frowned and took a sip of cool water from the jug on the bench.

“Not at her, no,” she said eventually. He pretended not to notice the unspoken conclusion of her statement, which was that she’d been quite angry with him.

“So you didn’t… feel like it was her fault? You didn’t think that she should have fought against it, or anything like that?”

Kate looked at him searchingly. “It’s not like there was anything she could have done about it. Why do you ask?”

He bit his lip; was it safe to tell her? But she, like Irene, was clever enough to figure it out on her own.

“Oh, I see,” she said with a laugh. “You’re worried about what your John will think when he comes back.”

Sherlock groaned and put his face in his hands. “I thought she wasn’t going to tell anyone!”

“She didn’t,” Kate assured him. “All she told me was that you wouldn’t be getting in our way at all, but it wasn’t exactly difficult to guess why.”

“Does everyone know?” Sherlock almost wailed, which made Kate laugh again.

“I wouldn’t worry about that. Most people on this island are completely oblivious - Irene and I have been together for three years and no one’s ever found out, except for Janine, and now you.” Sherlock gaped at her.  _ Three years? _ He thought wonderingly. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a secret relationship with John for that long. He was used to hiding his experiments and inventions from Mycroft and the rest of the village, but this was a different matter entirely. He didn’t  _ want _ to hide the way he felt about John, he wanted to shout it to the whole world. “That reminds me,” Kate continued brightly, “we’re going to need you tonight. We’re having a secret wedding.” Her eyes sparkled. “Janine’s officiating, but we need a witness. You’re the only one who can do it. Will you come?”

“What?” Sherlock stammered, stunned. A secret wedding. If only he could have had that with John  _ before _ the real wedding. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining him and John standing in the phosphorescent glow of the cave, with Martha leading the exchange of vows while Toothless looked on fondly. It was a ridiculous, impossible scene, but his heart ached for having thought of it.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Kate cajoled him. “We’re meeting down on the beach at midnight, on the east side of the docks where no one will be able to see us.”

“I - yes, I’ll come,” Sherlock agreed dazedly.

“Excellent,” Kate said, thudding him on the back in a comradely fashion and nearly knocking him off the bench.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. His head pounded and his muscles ached as they finally left the the training ring. The others all headed off to have dinner together at someone’s house; he was too exhausted to pay attention beyond that. They invited him along, but he declined, wanting to visit Toothless and bathe in the underground stream.

“Hello, Toothless,” he called with a yawn as he finally entered the cave. The sleek black dragon bounded over to him happily and gave him a few slobbery licks, which woke him up quite a bit. “I’m happy to see you too,” he told the night fury with a grin, reaching up to scratch the spot just under his chin that he loved so much.

He stripped quickly and told Toothless all about his failures in the training ring and his strange invitation to Irene and Kate’s secret wedding. Toothless, who had climbed a great stalactite, was watching him while hanging upside down. Sherlock put his toe in the water and flinched; he’d never quite gotten used to the icy cold of underground water that never saw sunlight. He was steeling himself to leap in and get it over with when Toothless made an odd hiccuping sound. Sherlock nearly leapt out of his skin as a stream of blue fire shot past him and seared into the water, sending up billows of steam. The dragon rumbled in satisfaction as the steam dissipated, allowing Sherlock to slip his foot into the water once more. This time it was steaming hot, but not quite too hot for him to slide his aching body into it. It felt wonderful.

“You’re brilliant, you know,” Sherlock told Toothless with a blissful grin as he soaked, feeling the worst of his aches fading away. Even from upside down, Sherlock could see that Toothless looked very pleased.

He closed his eyes and turned his thoughts to Toothless’s tail, anxious to forestall painful thoughts of John’s absence for as long as possible. The replacement flap he’d been working on was made of oiled canvas stretched tautly on a wooden frame; he thought the material was similar enough to Toothless’s own leathery tail, and it made sense that it should work like a ship’s sail - lightweight and slightly flexible, but strong enough to catch the wind. All he had to do now was figure out how to affix it properly next to the remaining tail flap. He thought something like a belt would work best, but he wasn’t sure if Toothless would hold still long enough for him to buckle it on, and once he had, then what? How would Toothless be able to control it? He suspected it would hang limply once attached, not offering any support at all. But how could he find a way to keep it flared out? What about all of the subtle adjustments necessary for turning and diving - even if Toothless could get airborne, would he be able to control his flight? Sherlock had spent hours watching birds fly when he was younger, and he understood intricately how each feather was necessary to direct a turn or a change in speed or elevation. The crows and kites with missing tail feathers from their molts always struggled to glide and dive as gracefully as the others, and that was only with one or two feathers missing at a time.

After his bath, he spent the remaining hours of daylight sitting on the beach outside the waterfall, sketching page after page as he tried to figure out what to do about the tail. Eventually he gave up. There was no way to plan any further until he’d attached the tail and seen how it worked. He tucked the drawings into his pocket and looked out at the brilliant sunset to his right, where the sun was dipping behind the curve of the ocean in a hot orange-pink glow. Then he looked to his left, where the sky had turned a dusky purple dotted faintly with stars, and finally thought of John. He was out there somewhere, a speck floating on the vast ocean, with nearly a fortnight to go before reaching the Verland Isles. The two months of waiting stretched out before him as vast as the ocean itself. He closed his eyes and thought back to the night before John’s departure. He’d known it was him coming into the house from the moment the back door had opened (who else used the back door, after all?), had felt his blood sing with anticipation and wanting; had come to meet him at the top of the stairs, feeling almost feverish. And when he’d seen him, heard John’s voice say his name, he’d moved as though in a dream, with a confidence he hadn’t known he’d possessed.

He felt as though every gasp and murmur of their kiss had been imprinted in his memory, where it burned with fiery clarity; but reliving it in his mind wasn’t enough. And, he admitted to himself, kissing alone wasn’t enough; he wanted  _ more _ . Thinking this made him feel lightheaded and terrified, but no less certain of his desire.

He knew it was no good to dwell on how much he missed and wanted John; it would only get in the way of his focus and put their escape plans at risk. But he couldn’t help allowing himself a moment every now and then to close his eyes and let the ache in his heart cry out and be heard.

After slipping back inside to say goodbye to Toothless, who was unsuccessfully trying to catch the blind fish in the stream, he headed to Martha’s for dinner. She’d made deliciously steaming vegetable pies and seemed to be waiting for him.

“How did it go today in the training ring?” she asked as he sat down with a plate laden with enough pie for two people. He felt nearly overwhelmed with fondness for her.

“It was rubbish,” he informed her before taking a huge bite of pie.

“Oh dear,” Martha said, but she sounded rather amused. “Are you getting on with Irene alright?”

“I suppose,” he admitted, “though she’s still a bit… intimidating.”

Martha laughed. “Well, it’s good for you to have another friend, all the same. And she really doesn’t mind about the marriage?” He’d told her everything about his meeting with her last night (well,  _ almost _ everything; he’d left out the bit about Kate, remembering Irene’s hand on her dagger).

“Not at all. But  _ I _ still mind,” he added glumly.

“Oh, that reminds me!” Martha said suddenly, leaping to her feet and disappearing into her bedroom, which was just around the corner from the kitchen. She came out holding an old book that Sherlock had never seen before. It had a peeling cover of gray cloth painted with a fading array of different flowers; he thought he could make out daisies and wild roses, but the rest were unfamiliar. The flaking letters of the title were impossible to read. “It’s a book about the properties of different herbs and flowers,” she explained, handing it to him. The yellowed pages were well worn; he flipped through them carefully. “Margaret brought it to me after a harvest trip to the mainland. Besides being actually useful in medicine, all of the flowers have symbolic uses, you know? And I remembered one in particular that I thought might be of interest to you.” The medicinal uses listed for each plant were certainly fascinating, but Sherlock wasn’t sure why she thought he’d be interested in their symbolism; what use could fantasy and folklore possibly be to him? “Look at lavender,” she pressed, and he obligingly flipped to the correct page.

He recognized it immediately; he’d seen it growing in gardens all around the village, though it didn’t grow wild on the island. He knew it best for its tiny fragrant purple buds.

“Read it,” Martha urged. He skimmed over its symbolic attributes - love, devotion, purity - and focused on the discussion of its history.  _ In many kingdoms of the Mainland, lavender, long known as a symbol of true love, has come to be used as symbolic counter to arranged marriages. For those unlucky lovers separated by such a marriage, the unwilling party wears the lavender in some unnoticeable place, perhaps tucked into their hair or slipped into a shoe, for the duration of their wedding. The lavender sprig renders ineffectual any vows spoken as part of the service, allowing the lovers to continue their affair without breaking said vows. _

It wasn’t perfect, he thought, but it was something. It seemed a little silly to wear the lavender when he intended to leave the island with John one way or another, but then again, he supposed that marriage itself was an entirely symbolic act; why not combat symbol with symbol? He handed the book back to Martha and grinned.

“Do you know where I can get any?” he asked.

“I’ve got some growing out back,” she beamed at him, and it was settled.

 

 

 

Irene and Kate had chosen the setting of their secret wedding quite cleverly. The only way to access it was to climb down some steep slanted stones that completely blocked his view of what was below. He found the three of them tucked behind a tall boulder that made a sort of alcove against the hill. They’d lit hundreds of candles (where they’d gotten them, he had no idea) and scattered pink asters all over the ground. Sherlock found himself wondering if the delicate flowers had any symbolic meaning; regardless, they were quite beautiful, and gave the hidden space a warm, rosy glow. There was a small lantern in the middle of the sandy space that smelled of cedar and rose petals. Janine was pouring red wine into a bowl and passing it around; Irene and Kate were laughing softly. Both of them had flowers woven into their hair, which they’d left loose and flowing. They looked like goddesses, and he wondered what on earth  _ he _ was doing there, a mortal with no interest in gods or women; but they really couldn’t have invited anyone else.

“Sherlock!” Irene trilled when she saw him approaching. “I’d almost begun to wonder if you were going to show up at all!”

“Here,” he muttered awkwardly, handing her a hastily wrapped package.

It was a sugary cake baked and frosted by Martha; thankfully, she hadn’t asked why he needed it. No one seemed to mind that it was slightly smashed. It seemed the least he could do to make up for inconveniencing them with the marriage - although he was getting used to the idea that it might actually turn out rather convenient for all of them, after all. They sat on the sand at ate slices of cake while Janine sang a few traditional romantic songs cleverly changed to be about two girls; she had a very pleasant voice. Sherlock refused the wine and got teased for it, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t like drinking and thought wine had a horrible taste anyway, and it wouldn’t do for him to get tipsy and start talking about Toothless. It was strange to spend time with people other than John. Part of him enjoyed it - he had to admit Irene and Kate were an amusing couple, constantly laughing and flirting and joking, and Janine had plenty of stories to tell about them - “You should have seen the looks on their faces when they realized Thomas had almost found them in his back garden… If I hadn’t pretended to trip over the vase on his porch...”

But the other part of him was constantly uneasy. There was something inherently stressful about being a part of a group of people. He felt that certain things were expected of him, certain responses; he was constantly checking his expression to make sure he didn’t look bored or confused, but he didn’t want to appear  _ too _ interested in case he got dragged into the conversation in earnest. It was exhausting, and he longed to be alone, somewhere quiet and dark and peaceful. But he forced himself to stay because he knew it mattered to them, and it couldn’t last forever, in any case.

Finally the cake had all been eaten and the wine bottle had been emptied. A hush fell across them; Irene and Kate looked at each other and smiled in a way that was almost painful to look at, because it reminded him of how he and John looked at each other.

“I think we’re ready,” Irene announced, and her voice was softer than usual. They all stood up and dusted sand off of their pants. Sherlock didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. He’d never been to a wedding before.

“Just sit there and look enchanted,” Irene instructed him with a wink when she noticed how nervous he looked. “We’ll do all the talking.” So he sat back down on the sand and watched while Irene and Kate stood opposite the lantern, the light making their faces glow in the chill night. Janine stood between them and took their hands in hers. The waves were unusually calm, whooshing against the beach in a way that felt hushed and reverent.

“We are gathered here tonight to witness the union of... ”

“Oh don’t go all formal on us,” Irene cried, laughing. “Skip ahead to the good bits. You know, the part where we get to exchange rings, and kiss, and all that.” Kate was giggling helplessly; Janine pretended to be affronted and attempted to continue.

“ ...to witness the union of Irene and Kate... ” It was no good. Irene and Kate were practically howling with laughter now; Sherlock thought they might even be crying. Janine went on to insult them good-naturedly with a few choice words, and before long even Sherlock had joined in as they mirthfully hurled insults back and forth. This finally subsided when the insults grew desperate and absurd (“Your mother was a tadpole with seven tails!” and “Well,  _ your _ mother didn’t have a tail at all!”), and they could no longer speak for having laughed so hard.

“Anyway,” Janine finally said breathlessly, “I wanted to say a few things. Serious things! No, really!” The others quieted. “Irene, I remember looking up to you so much when I was younger. You were always so strong and clever, and you always fought for what you wanted. And I remember the first time I heard you talk about Kate - you’d battled with her during dragon training and you wouldn’t stop talking about her for days. I was too young to know much about love but I think I understood, even then, what it meant when you sighed and stared at nothing, when you spent hours with Kate talking about nothing, when you always wanted to show off in the training ring. So when you finally told me how you felt about her, it was easy to be on your side, because I already understood. You were so afraid. It was the only time I’d ever seen you afraid. And I want you to know that you shouldn’t have to be. You’re the best sister I could ever imagine having, and I want you to be happy. And Kate, I’m glad we’ve become friends. It would be so easy to be jealous of one another, but all I can think about is how happy you’ve made my sister, and I’m so glad.”

Sherlock felt very confused listening to all of this. He’d never realized the bond between siblings could be so strong. Had he and Mycroft ever had anything like that before? He remembered a time when they had almost been friends, when he had looked up to Mycroft and had always sought out his approval… But that felt like another lifetime. Did Mycroft love him? Did Mycroft love  _ anyone _ ? He blinked as a startling question occurred to him. If Mycroft was so concerned about having someone inherit his chiefdom, why didn’t  _ he _ get married?

Setting the question aside for later, Sherlock watched as Irene and Kate slipped woven flower rings onto each others’ fingers, their hands trembling and their eyes shining with joyful tears. He supposed it was quite sweet and romantic, but he still didn’t feel like he belonged in their moment, and he looked down awkwardly when they kissed.

“‘Till death do us part,” Irene said with a crooked smile, never taking her eyes off Kate’s.

“Come on, you,” Janine said to Sherlock, and he scrambled to his feet, relieved that everything was finally over. “We’d better leave them alone; it’s their wedding night, after all.” She winked and he blushed when he realized what she meant.

They set off down the beach together, the glow of the lantern fading quickly behind them until they were guided only by the light of the moon, which reflected brightly off of the calm sea.

“So,” Janine said eventually, giving him a sidelong glance, “Why are you alright with all of this, anyway? I know you didn’t decide to marry Irene, but she’s a lovely woman all the same; I’d think any man would be quite pleased to have her as a wife.” There was a hint of a challenge in her voice.

“Ah,” Sherlock said carefully. “Well. Not  _ every _ man…” She studied him intently. “I thought Irene might have told you,” he added, unsure of what to say.

“She didn’t say a word,” Janine told him. “All she said was that we could trust you, and I trust her… but I don’t know a thing about you, Sherlock. And I need to know that you’re going to keep my sister’s secret safe.” That was the moment when he realized she was threatening him. He sighed; this was getting tedious.

“I’m not interested in  _ any _ women,” he gritted out, knowing she would fill in the blanks. “I’ve got nothing against her personally. Well. That’s not entirely true. I am quite afraid of her,” he confessed, thinking that this might get Janine on his side. To his relief, she laughed.

“I see. I should have known,” she said thoughtfully as they rounded the curve of the island and saw the campfires and torches of the village, like a beacon leading them onwards.

“What do you mean, you should have known?” Sherlock asked indignantly.

“Well, you’re not just afraid of Irene,” she said brightly, “it’s all of us. You clearly have no idea how to act around women, because you’ve never needed or wanted to before.”

He felt slightly ashamed, but it was partly true.

“I don’t know how to act around anyone,” he protested. “I’ve never had friends before.”

“You’ve got one,” Janine said pointedly, and he knew she’d figured it out. He sighed. That meant  _ five _ people on the island now knew about him and John - Mycroft, Martha, Irene, Kate, and now Janine. This was getting out of hand. He needed to figure out how to fly, and fast - they needed to be able to escape as soon as John returned.

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Sherlock. I know we’re not friends, not yet, but I’ve had years of practice hiding Irene’s secret. It won’t be any more difficult to hide yours too.”

“Thank you,” he murmured sincerely as they approached the docks. He wanted to believe her, he really did. But time had a way of revealing secrets when they needed to remain hidden the most, and he didn’t like taking so many chances.

They climbed up the cliff next to the docks instead of taking the main path, heading up a narrow rarely-used side trail instead to avoid the guards who were gazing out at the ocean, searching for dragons or enemy ships. They probably wouldn’t get into trouble if they were caught, but it wouldn’t exactly look proper, him out in the middle of the night with his betrothed’s sister. They parted ways at the top, Janine slipping away to her house while Sherlock circled to Martha’s place and headed up to sleep. He lay on his bed for nearly an hour, dreading the real wedding the next day, before he decided to get up and have a sip of water from the pitcher in the kitchen. When he went back up the stairs, he decided on impulse to go into John’s room instead. Curling up under linens that still smelled warmly of John, he fell asleep at once, and dreamed of standing under the full moon with flowers in his hair while John slid a ring onto his finger and kissed him.

 

 

 

The following day was a blur of activity; the village loved a good wedding, a chance to celebrate, to feast and drink and dance. The ceremony was to be held at twilight, but the festivities filled the day from start to finish. Sherlock numbly followed out Mycroft’s instructions, allowing himself to be ferried this way and that as he was made to bathe and dress in specially tailored wedding garments that he personally thought looked ridiculous. The village square was filled with people putting up bundles of flowers and streamers of bright red, blue, yellow, and orange cloth that fluttered gaily in the faintly crisp breeze. Sherlock didn’t see Irene or her friends at all during the preparations, as was traditional. He felt miserably lonely and couldn’t stop thinking about John and wondering how he would feel if this was their wedding instead. Would the decorations feel appropriately extravagant instead of excessive and tacky? Would the cheerful excitement of the other villagers leave him feeling proud and giddy instead of sick and anxious? The only way to get through the day seemed to be to go out of his head entirely, which left him quiet and dazed-looking; more than once people stopped to ask him if he was alright, and he would answer with an automatic smile in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. It seemed to work well enough, but only because most of the other villagers were oblivious to the subtleties of facial expressions and variations in tone that Sherlock was so in tune with.

Martha found him sometime in the afternoon where he was sitting in the shade in the village square, ostensibly watching the other villagers playing games in his honor, or something like that. He hadn’t really been paying attention.

“Sherlock, love, you look terrible,” she told him in dismay. “Have you had anything to eat?” He hadn’t. She fussed over him as though she were his own mother; he dimly registered that he appreciated her concern, though the rest of his mind was far, far away, standing on the railing of a ship with John’s hand in his, preparing to leap - not down into the ocean depths, but up into the brilliant blue sky, the vast expanse of freedom that was just out of reach. Something was in his hand, but it wasn’t John’s hand as he imagined, it was a cup full of something cold; he sipped it automatically, not noticing or caring if it was water or something else.

Eventually he became aware that the sun was dipping towards the horizon and the atmosphere around him was shifting from entertainment to anticipation. Mycroft appeared to lead him to the center of the square. It was then that he noticed something clutched in his hand - not the cup from earlier, but something soft and almost damp that was studded with rows of bumps. He opened his palm curiously and realized he was holding a few sprigs of lavender. He almost smiled for the first time that day as he discreetly tucked the slightly crushed purple flowers up his sleeve.  _ For you, John _ , he thought fiercely.  _ It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. I know I’m all yours _ .

And then he was stepping up onto some sort of platform; a hush fell over the crowd, and he could feel Mycroft’s presence hovering at his side. Someone was speaking but he didn’t know or care who it was, because he was hearing a different voice whispering in his ear.  _ I want you to come with me, _ John had said, long before they’d kissed. And not long after,  _ You’re always worth waiting for _ . Then,  _ Promise me that you’ll wait for me _ . John had wanted Sherlock even then, had been telling him in the only way he knew how that they belonged together.  _ I love you _ , he’d said.  _ I love you, I love you _ . And,  _ You’re beautiful _ . Did he really think that? He remembered the last kiss they’d shared, and he knew they’d only been together for one night but it felt like there must have already been thousands of kisses, years of them, and still he wanted more.

Suddenly Irene was standing in front of him, dressed in ceremonial battle gear with her hair braided and bound beneath a shining helmet. They were exchanging vows - he’d memorized them without letting himself think of their meaning - and then they were placing braided iron rings on each others’ fingers, and Irene was leaning in for a kiss. Sherlock felt like he was watching from outside of his body; he saw their lips meet and the crowd of villagers cheer, though there was a ringing silence in his ears and his body felt devoid of physical sensation. Then she took his hand and led him through the parting crowd, up the hill to the small cottage she had inherited from her grandparents, where they were now meant to live in matrimonial bliss. The villagers followed them all the way to the door, singing bawdy marriage songs, and cheered as Irene lifted Sherlock off his feet and over the threshold, as was tradition. And then she closed the door behind him and he melted onto the floor in a puddle of exhaustion; it was over, it was finally over.

“Sherlock,” Irene said worriedly, kneeling next to him, “are you alright?”

“Did I do okay?” he asked, blinking up at her. In spite of his opposition to the whole thing, he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her.

“Yes, you did fine,” she told him, exasperated. “Only Mycroft and I were close enough to notice the glassy look in your eyes. Are you feeling alright? Do you have a fever?” Frowning, she felt his forehead with her wrist. “You’re a little warm.”

_ I’m fine _ , he wanted to say, but he wasn’t fine, and it would do no good pretending.

“I’m going to get you some water,” Irene said decisively, standing and retreating into the darkened house. Soon she’d maneuvered him into a chair at the kitchen table, where he drank cold water gratefully from a tall mug. “You look awful. Do you want some tea?”

“You don’t have to take care of me, you know,” he told her, setting down the mug. “Just because we’re married.”

“I know that. I’m not looking after you because we’re married. I know none of that is real. I’m doing it because that’s what friends do.”

“We’re friends?” he asked, because he really hadn’t been sure.

“Yes,” she said firmly, standing up. “I’m making you tea. With willow bark and mint. Ought to help with your headache.”

“How’d you know I have a headache?” he muttered irritably. He did, and it was throbbing terribly, getting worse every minute.

“You’re not the only observant person on this island,” she called from the kitchen, sounding amused. He laid his head on the table and closed his eyes. The pain was bad enough that he couldn’t think straight. Maybe that was a good thing. Soon Irene was pressing a different mug into his hands, one full of hot, steaming tea. He blew on it and sipped it carefully, but it scalded his tongue anyway. He sighed and put his head back on the table, waiting for it to cool.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, because he really did appreciate it. She had no reason to be nice to him, after all.

“We’re going to have to have a talk when you’re feeling better,” she said, watching him worriedly. “About appearing convincingly married.”

“Oh gods,” Sherlock sighed. “I’m quite certain I’ll be rubbish at that.”

“There’s also the fact that tonight is our wedding night.”

“Yes?” Sherlock prompted her, feeling distracted and slow.

“You know what’s supposed to happen on wedding nights.” Oh. That.

“But we’re obviously not doing that,” Sherlock said, alarmed, sitting up straight. His head pounded.

“Of course not! But everyone’s going to expect it.”

“How will they know what we have or haven’t been doing in bed?” he asked indignantly.

“I keep forgetting how woefully ignorant you are of some of Berk’s most common customs,” she said with a sigh.

“There’s nothing customary about - ”

“I’m not talking about the official traditions,” she said, exasperated once more. “I’m talking about all the young, gossipy villagers who are doubtlessly hiding out beneath our bedroom window, waiting to hear us get on with it so they can giggle about it like five-year-olds over breakfast.”

Sherlock gaped at her. “People  _ do _ that?”

“You’re one to talk,” Irene countered, “you used to expose people’s affairs all the time.”

“Yes, but - but that was different!” he spluttered. “That was only because it was so  _ obvious _ , not because I was sneaking around underneath people’s bedroom windows in the dead of night!”

Irene raised her eyebrows disbelievingly, but made no comment. “In any case,” she continued, “they’re going to notice if we just go quietly to bed.”

“So what? Let them notice. It’s none of their business anyway.”

“You’re right, but it matters what they think, Sherlock,” she said quietly. “Do you want them to start gossiping about how we’re not having sex? Do you want them to start wondering why? They’re not all as dull as you think. Sooner or later, they might piece it together. And I’m not willing to take that risk.” As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point.

“So what are you suggesting we do?” he asked warily, sipping his cooling tea. It was surprisingly good.

“All they need is to hear something convincing,” she said matter-of-factly. “We could just pretend - ”

“No,” Sherlock blurted out, mortified. “No, I can’t do that, that’s…”

“It’s not real, Sherlock,” she reminded him gently.

“It’s not just that,” he said desperately. “I haven’t - I don’t know how - I wouldn’t be convincing, I’ve never…” He’d never been more embarrassed in his life. Irene’s eyes widened.

“You and John never…”

“No. Not yet,” he added miserably.

“Okay,” she said slowly. He was immensely grateful that she wasn’t teasing him. “Well. In that case, I’ll have to manage by myself.”

“Thank gods,” he muttered. “I thought you’d want to coach me through it or something.” He felt hugely relieved as he gulped down more tea. She smiled crookedly at him.

“Well, I don’t want your first experience with sex to be fake,” she said simply. “It wouldn’t be fair to you or John. You’re acting like you think I’m, I don’t know, evil or something,” she said, catching his look of amazement. “I’m really not. Fierce and independent, yes. But I’m on your side, Sherlock. And you’re on mine. We can both be happy if we help each other.”

“I hope so,” he sighed. He thought about everything she’d done for him, from bringing him tea to agreeing to a fake marriage, to trusting him with her and Kate’s secret, and knew he had to tell her. “Irene,” he began hesitantly, dragging his fingers through his hair (a few drooping blue flowers fell out; he hadn’t realized they’d been a part of his wedding costume), “I’m not going to be around forever.”

“None of us are, dear,” she pointed out, looking slightly worried, as though she thought his headache was making him say obvious, unnecessary things.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, looking anywhere but her face. “I’m going to leave Berk.” He forced himself to look at her so he could read her expression. It wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

“Of course you are,” she said, looking like this wasn’t at all news to her. “Everyone knows John’s aching to leave the island. I assumed the two of you would take off as soon as you got the chance. Do you have a plan yet?” Sherlock gaped at her.

“You… don’t mind?” he asked eventually.

“Of course not,” she said briskly. “If you leave, I’m effectively free. I can spend my whole life pining over you, waiting for you to come back; no one will blame me for not remarrying, because I won’t technically be widowed.” It was a good plan, Sherlock realized - the perfect way for Irene and Kate to get what they wanted, as long as no one tried to arrange a marriage for Kate. “But we can talk about all this later, when you’re feeling better. For now, I’ve got a performance to put on.” Sherlock almost spat out his tea when she grinned at him. She almost seemed like she was looking forward to it.

“Where do I sleep?” he asked; he hadn’t thought about it until just now.

“In the bed, of course,” she said as she got to her feet. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room. But you might want to wait for half an hour or so before you come in.” Her catlike eyes gleamed with amusement.

“Er. Right.”

“‘Night, love,” she sang, prancing off to the bedroom, leaving him to finish his tea in silence.

He ached to slip outside and sneak over to Martha’s house, or even trek all the way to Toothless’s cave and sleep in the mossy nest the dragon had made for him, so that he could get a good night’s sleep; but he couldn’t risk being seen. He didn’t really want to sleep in the bed with Irene, though, no matter how big it was. Finishing his tea, he investigated the space surrounding the kitchen, finding a few blankets and pillows furnishing the chairs. Gathering them together, he built himself a sort of nest in the corner where no one would see him if they looked through the windows. He burrowed into them gratefully and made sure to cover his ears with a pillow, just in case Irene’s “performance” was spirited enough to be audible from the other side of the house. With his headache finally receding, he let himself drift back into his fantasies from earlier that day.

This time it was John standing in front of the village with him, wearing ceremonial armor and decorated with blue flowers that made his stormy eyes look unusually soft and bright. It was John who slipped a ring on his finger and kissed him in front of the crowd, and John who whisked him over the threshold, but he didn’t stop there; he carried him all the way to the bed and they tumbled into it together, and Sherlock fell asleep imagining what would happen next.


	18. Chapter 18

“John! John, wake up!”

John sat bolt upright, his heart pounding wildly, his breathing coming in shallow gasps. He felt sick and disoriented and his body was sticky with chilled sweat. Worst of all, his throat was raw and scratchy, as though he’d been screaming. Captain Lestrade was standing by him, looking deeply worried.

“John, are you alright?” Lestrade sounded almost afraid. John wondered what he’d heard.

“I’m fine,” he rasped out, but he wasn’t.

It had only been six days since  _ The Night Fury _ had departed, but it felt like six months. Working on the deck didn’t keep him nearly as preoccupied as he’d hoped - the motions were all so automatic after his years of sailing experience that his mind was free to wander.

He missed Sherlock more than he’d thought possible. He missed him so much that his whole body ached with loneliness and his heart hurt. His dreams were the worst. They usually involved Sherlock being in danger and John being unable to help him. He thought he must have been having one of those dreams just before Lestrade woke him, though he couldn’t remember it.

“Do you… do you want to talk about it?” Lestrade asked him timidly.

He didn’t, but he thought maybe he should.

“It was a nightmare,” he confessed, wiping sweat off of his brow. He noticed that his arm was trembling. He hoped Lestrade hadn’t seen it. He didn’t want him to think he was ill or weak. “I don’t remember what was happening. Did you… er…”

“I heard you screaming,” Lestrade answered, almost apologetically.

“Ah,” said John, swallowing uncomfortably. “Just… screaming?”

“Talking,” Lestrade replied, with that same nervous tone in his voice.

“Did anyone else hear?” John asked, dread starting to creep in.

“No,” Lestrade assured him, “but they could next time.”

John buried his face in his hands.

“What did you hear?” he whispered, not wanting to hear the answer.

“You… you were calling for someone.”

“Someone?” But he knew who it was, and he knew Lestrade knew too.

“Sherlock.”

John lifted his head from his hands and looked up at Lestrade, knowing it was useless to hide the depth of his emotion. Would Lestrade realize what this meant, or would he obliviously think they were just close friends? Would he remember Harry and Clara and think, yes, this makes sense, I should have known all along?

“I won’t tell anyone,” Lestrade said slowly, “but if you keep having these dreams, I can’t promise someone else won’t hear you. What I can do,” he continued quietly, “is move you down to the end of the rooms, so that there’s nothing but the hull and an empty room on either side of you.”

John looked at him in wonderment.

“You wouldn’t mind?” he said shakily.

“I want you to be comfortable,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. “It’s the only thing I can think of that might help.” He paused, looking as though he wasn’t sure if he should say whatever he’d planned to say next, but then rushed on with a look of determination. “You don’t have to tell me why you’re having dreams about Sherlock, but if you ever want to talk about it, I want you to know it’s safe. Whatever it is, you can tell me. It’s all fine.”

John felt a huge rush of gratitude; he knew it couldn’t have been an easy thing to offer.

“Thank you,” he said weakly, sitting up in his hammock and swinging his legs over the edge. His body temperature seemed to be doing a better job of regulating itself now; he no longer had chills. “That means a lot.” It was still terrifying that Lestrade knew, though, because it meant the others could find out. In a way, John thought it was surprising that they hadn’t, because he felt like his love for Sherlock was written all over his body, stamped on every inch of his skin, tattooed across his face. He’d marveled at the fact that they could see him and not know the turmoil of emotions within him, not see Sherlock’s delicate, angular features painted in the air before him when he could see him so clearly in his mind.

Suddenly he wanted to talk to Lestrade about it. He’d felt so lonely these past few days, something that had never bothered him before - he’d gotten used to being alone on the nine-year voyage. Sure, he’d had Lestrade looking after him, and he’d spent plenty of time with the younger children, and there’d been Harry for a time - but mostly it was just him looking out over the vastness of the empty, lonely sea. Now he couldn’t stand the loneliness, because he knew what it was like to be so close to someone that they felt like his other half.

“Do you miss your wife?” he asked, knowing Lestrade would catch the implication that his relationship with Sherlock was somehow comparable.

“Oh,” said Lestrade, sounding surprised. “Well, things with her haven’t been… We haven’t… she wanted to come with us,” he admitted, sounding a bit flustered. “She actually wanted to go back to the Verland Isles. She tried to convince me to take her and Molly there, to stay with them.” He swallowed and looked at the floor. “You know, permanently. I didn’t want to, but I wanted to make her happy, so we asked Molly. And it turns out Molly is in love with Berk and doesn’t want to leave all of her friends, and Anna was furious with me because she thought I made her say it, or something. I told her they could come along anyway to see if Molly might change her mind, but she refused.” He sighed helplessly. John didn’t know what to say. He was surprised at the the turn of the conversation - he hadn’t realized Lestrade’s problems with his wife were so serious.

“I’m sorry,” he said tentatively. “What do you think will happen next?”

“I don’t know,” Lestrade said with another tired sigh. “I just don’t see how it can work out so that all of us can be happy. Things used to be so different,” he said wistfully. “Anna was so keen for adventure when we met. I thought it was love, but now I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything. But I know we both love Molly. We both want her to be happy.”

“You don’t think you were in love with Anna?” John asked hesitantly.

Lestrade laughed sadly. “I thought I was. It was like a fairytale, you know? She was beautiful, and charming, and wanted me to take her away. It was new and exciting, something hopeful during a darker time. But I have this feeling now that none of it was ever real, that we were just acting out some script that people expected us to fall into.” He shook his head, looking slightly lost. “I still care about her, of course. But it’s just not what I thought it was.” He glanced at John, looking uncertain, and asked, “Do you think you’re in love?” John could hear the unspoken  _ with Sherlock _ hanging on the end of his question.

“Yes,” John whispered, and he didn’t think he’d ever said anything so true in his life. It filled him with a strange joy to admit it out loud. “Yes,” he said again, almost laughing in relief, smiling for the first time in days. If only he could tell the rest of the world.

Lestrade was watching him carefully, but there was no sign of judgment on his face.

“Is it hard?” he asked after a moment. “Not being able to tell anyone?”

“It’s awful,” John admitted. “It’s exhausting, trying to maintain the disguise. I can’t ever stop thinking about him and I wish I could talk about him, I’d probably never shut up about him, but I can’t give it away, and it makes me want to punch a wall or find a way to sleep without dreaming until we get to land.”

“What are you going to do when we get back?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We want to leave Berk together, but we don’t have a safe way out yet. He’s working on something, but I don’t know what it is.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly, though John suspected his plan had something to do with Toothless.

“He feels the same about you, then?”

“Yes,” John said, and he could hear amazement in his own voice.

“Then I’m happy for you,” Lestrade said fiercely, “because not many people have that, you know. Not many people are lucky enough. I want you to know that if you need help, I’m here. I’m rooting for you.”

“Thank you,” John said, feeling deeply moved.

“Even if it means going behind Mycroft’s back. He’s a good leader, but he doesn’t always get everything right, you know.”

“I think he knows,” John told him, remembering the conversation from the night before they’d left Berk. “I think he’s planning on keeping us apart, somehow. I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Well, there’s nothing you  _ can _ do, at least not right now,” Lestrade said reasonably. “All you’ve got to worry about is getting through this tournament. We’ll be heading back to Berk before you know it.”

“I suppose,” John consented, but at the rate they were going, it felt like it would be years before they returned. He looked at Lestrade, who was still standing just inside the door of the tiny cabin, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Is there something else...?” he prompted him, feeling curious.

“Well… Maybe it would be best if I didn’t…”

“It’s fine, you can ask me anything,” John cut in, because Lestrade had made him feel much better about things, and it seemed only fair to give him a chance to ask questions. There was something about the quiet of the ship at night that seemed conducive to this kind of conversation, this outpouring of secrets. He felt wide awake anyway, and wasn’t looking forward to being alone in the dark once more, drifting off into another nightmare.

“How did you know,” Lestrade began carefully, seeming to search for words, “that what you were feeling… that you…” he sighed in frustration and started over. “I think I might… there’s someone, but I’m not sure… oh hell,” he said miserably. “I don’t know how you’re so calm about this, how are you doing that?”

John stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“There’s someone,” Lestrade tried again, “who I think I might… have feelings for. A man. But I’m not sure. And I don’t know how you know, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” John looked at him in absolute amazement. Lestrade? In love with another man? But who?

“I think,” he said carefully, “that the very fact that you’re asking me this says a great deal.” Lestrade looked at him helplessly, and John felt a surge of pity. John was lucky, in a a way; he’d had years to think about the fact that he might be interested in men, might prefer them, after learning Harry’s secret and seeing her with Clara. But it was all more abstract for Lestrade, and he was so much older. To go his whole life not knowing, not expecting, and then to have these questions sprung upon him must be rather alarming.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lestrade said again, a sort of question to which he expected no answer. He slid down the wall and sat on the floor, hugging his knees and looking quite lost.

“Is there any chance that whoever it is feels the same way?”

“No,” said Lestrade immediately. But then he hesitated. “Maybe. No! Oh, I don’t know.” He looked quite anguished. “I’ve gotten some very mixed messages. And of course I have Anna to think about. She’s still my wife, even if we don’t have feelings for each other anymore, if we ever did. But if she went to the Verland Isles, and I stayed on Berk, then maybe - and I keep thinking that, but it  _ still _ doesn’t matter because there’s no way we could ever be together, but what if, what if…” he was staring out the porthole now, looking almost unbearably sad. “You’re lucky, you know,” he said to John suddenly. “You’re young, you haven’t married, you don’t have children to worry about. You still have time. You can still escape. There’s still a chance for you.”

“There could be a chance for you, too,” he said firmly, even though it was doubtful based on what Lestrade had told him. He climbed out of the hammock and sat on the floor across from his captain. “People have secret relationships all the time, for any number of reasons.”

“Other people, maybe,” Lestrade said gloomily.

“Who is it, then?” John asked curiously, unable to help himself. Maybe if he knew who it was, he could be more useful. He might even be able to help Lestrade figure out if the other man felt the same way.

“I don’t think I should tell you,” Lestrade said awkwardly.

“You know I wouldn’t tell anyone,” John pointed out, puzzled.

“It’s not that,” Lestrade shook his head, sounding desperate. “I just really think it’s best if I don’t…” But John was already thinking, and slowly the pieces were coming together. It couldn’t have been anyone who was with them on the voyage, because it sounded clear that Lestrade had only newly discovered his feelings. That meant it had to be someone who’d stayed behind, but also someone who John knew well enough to make Lestrade uncomfortable revealing his identity. Probably someone he would need to interact with on a regular basis…

“No,” John said suddenly, horrified. “No, you’ve got to be joking.” He stared at Lestrade, who looked back at him despondently. “ _ Mycroft? _ ” he whispered furiously. Lestrade swallowed but didn’t say anything. “No. You’re  _ kidding _ me.”

“I know,” Lestrade said, as though he couldn’t believe it either, but he was definitely blushing. “I don’t know how it happened. He’s so - he makes me so  _ angry _ , but then sometimes he looks at me and I just see someone completely different, and there’s all these little things that happen that would mean nothing on their own but when you add them all together… The way he turns up the moment I’m least expecting him to, the way he  _ looks _ at me, and the  _ touching _ \- ”

“Touching?” John broke in, startled. He couldn’t imagine Mycroft touching anyone on purpose unless it was to knock them out or kill them.

“Yes,” Lestrade said miserably. “It’s the most ridiculous thing, but if he puts his hand on my shoulder, or if he stands too close, or if our fingers touch when we’re handing each other something, I feel…”

“Electric,” John said softly, thinking of his fingers sliding over the palm of Sherlock’s hand when he took the soup ladle from him in Martha’s kitchen, of the night when they’d sat next to each other on top of the island with the dragoncatcher, their arms brushing.

“Yes,” Lestrade said hopelessly. And suddenly John felt a strange lightness unfolding inside him, and before he knew it he was laughing, laughing harder than he had in days; his whole body shook with it, and tears pooled in his eyes.

“Look at us both,” he whispered between bouts of giggles. “Gods, I never would have imagined this happening to us in a hundred years.” Lestrade wasn’t quite laughing, but his eyes were crinkled in a smile, and John had never been so glad to have a friend. It didn’t seem to matter at all that John was just a sailor and Lestrade was his captain. They were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat, and John felt a rush of affection, glad that the man who’d practically become his adoptive father on the voyage also happened to be his friend.

“It felt good to finally tell someone,” Lestrade said quietly when John eventually finished laughing. “It’s hard, carrying around secrets like this. They weigh so heavily on us. I’ve seen how exhausted you are every night. I don’t think anyone else has noticed, but it’s my job to notice. And then I heard you when I was coming down to sleep.” He sighed and looked at John searchingly. “I really think it’s going to be okay, you know,” he said softly. “You and Sherlock are good for each other. Like two puzzle pieces, meant to go together. I don’t think the world has a chance against the two of you.”

“I hope you’re right,” John said, closing his eyes and thinking of Sherlock, standing on the docks watching him leave, seemingly unaware of the tears streaking his face. Every time he recalled that image he feared his heart might split in two. “As for you,” he said, drawing himself back to the present, “don’t give up hope. You can’t know what’s going to happen when we get back, but honestly, Mycroft _ needs _ someone like you to keep him human. I wouldn’t give up on him too easily.”

“You make it sound so straightforward,” Lestrade said bitterly. “But half the time I can’t stand him anyway. And it’s not like I wanted any of this to happen.”

John thought back to the time before Sherlock had kissed him, before he’d said  _ I love you _ into his lips, and thought of the times he’d come so close to kissing Sherlock but had stopped himself because he was uncertain how Sherlock felt about him in return. What would have happened if Sherlock hadn’t made such a bold move? Would they have waited forever, desperately wanting each other but afraid of revealing it? But then again, what would happen if Lestrade was wrong? What would Mycroft do if Lestrade did something similar, but Mycroft wasn’t interested? Best case scenario, he’d ignore it and things would be awkward between them for the rest of their lives. Worst case scenario Mycroft could have him banished or something ridiculous and dramatic like that. John could see how that might be a problem.

“At least you’ve got plenty of time to think about it,” John pointed out, trying to grasp onto something hopeful. “And when we get back to Berk, maybe it will become more clear. It’s a lot easier to understand feelings when you admit that they’re real.”

“Maybe,” Lestrade said dubiously. He sighed and got to his feet. “It was good talking with you, John. I know it helped me a great deal. I hope you’re feeling a bit better too. And I’ll have your things moved to the end room tomorrow.”

“Cheers,” John said with a tired smile; he too got to his feet and looked thoughtfully at his hammock. Maybe his dreams wouldn’t be so bad tonight.

“‘Night, John,” Lestrade called softly as he slipped out of his room, closing the door softly behind him.

John climbed back into his hammock and wondered what Sherlock was doing at that very moment. Was he sleeping? Visiting Toothless in the night? Was he thinking about him, or dreaming about him? Maybe he was enjoying having time to himself and didn’t miss John at all. But he thought again of the way he’d looked as they sailed away, his beautiful, unearthly eyes desperate to hold John’s gaze.

“Soon, Sherlock,” he whispered into his pillow. “We’ll be together again soon.”


End file.
